Middle Gate

Alptekin produced a number of works using appropriated photographic images. The images are typically black and white except for certain features that are highlighted in individual colours. This use of colour here is emblematic. Alptekin would select colours that had different social or political meanings. For example, the red, yellow and green in the works Bina and Refinery are colours taken from the Kurdish flag, a divisive symbol in Turkey because of political tensions with the oppressed Kurdish minority. Whereas his use of green and blue, such as in the work Ah Odessa, refers to the colours of Prozac and Viagra respectively – two typical prescription drugs abundant in modern society. This work, which combines a beach scene with an photo of Humphrey Bogart wearing flippers, was originally made for a spread in a newspaper. It is one of many works Alptekin made looking across at neighbouring cities around the Black Sea.