Azade Köker lives and works in Istanbul and Berlin. Equally at home with painting and sculpture, Köker is especially concerned
with female identity and belonging. Her latest sculptural works focus on sexual violence and domestic abuse, which continue to
be rarely treated as crimes in the artist’s Turkish homeland and elsewhere. Here, in Deconstruction (Venus), the greater than life-size
figure has begun to unravel into multiples of a woman clothed in a gossamer sleeveless gown with deep pleats reminiscent of
Classical sculpture. In stark contrast to its carved stone inspiration, this sculpture is made from more ephemeral materials, with many
of the same vulnerabilities as the human body. Tiny, pearl-like buttons on the dress reinforce this sense of fragility and perhaps
innocence. When viewed in the round, it has an almost kinetic quality, as though itemizing its own destruction. The headless torso and detached, dangling arms and hands suggest some form of unspeakable brutality, deliberately contradicting traditional notions of the goddess of love.
