Middle Gate

The movement of objects and people under the conditions of globalisation was a subject of fundamental importance for Alptekin’s art. The work Turk Truck that he made together with Michael Morris reflects the influx of cheap plastic goods transported around the world. It was first created for the Istanbul Biennial in 2005, for which the artists found a truck in Izmir and took the journey with it to Istanbul. The truck itself is typical of the vintage Russian-made trucks overloaded with goods seen on the roads in Turkey. It carries a large haul of coloured footballs, a cheap plastic version of balls that are normally leather, with their bright prosaic colours attempting to stand in for their obvious fakeness. Being the most ubiquitous sport internationally as well as the prompt for much nationalistic pride, Football generates such a global demand for products that these kinds of balls could be manufactured and transported from anywhere in the world. With the bright red colour of the truck, the work appears toy-like, yet might also be considered divisive for a “Turk truck”, as the only variety of colours available to them at that time was the same as those of the Kurdish flag.