This year, the thirteenth and fourteenth of the New Proposals-New Propositions exhibitions will be organized. The shows are organized in the summer months since 1998? Sometimes as a single exhibition and sometimes as a two-phase exhibition. New Proposals-New Propositions nevertheless seems to be achieving its goal: since the first organization, New Proposals-New Propositions exhibitions aim to be a kind of first stop for the young artists in Turkey, and today receives around one-hundred dossiers from all around the country. As the applicant dossiers (which increase in number every year) signify the potential of the young artists in the country, they also give us hints about the educational institutions that accommodate this artistic potential. In the works of the young artists, it is possible to trace the marks of their educational institutions, to investigate how their works overlap or conflict with the traditional structures of the institutions, and to find reflections of how the educational concepts of new institutions are shaped. On the other hand, these young artists certainly reflect an independent attitude in their own scope of creativity. As candidate-artists in a world where visual literacy becomes ever more important, they endeavour to put forth new works with a different voice, a different statement.

The first phase of this year's New Proposals-New Propositions exhibition shows the works of ten young artists from Dokuz Eylül, Marmara, Mersin, and Mimar Sinan Universities. In the exhibition, where paintings, sculptures, videos, and installations are shown, different issues, from the dilemma between city and nature to the numerous problems of daily life, from the borders between language and thought to the individual's adventure of existence, find their expression through different channels. One issue, which artists deal with either directly as a case or express indirectly, is the influence of the intense world of images, which today gradually assumes the form of a severe visual bombardment. Nejat Satı (Dokuz Eylül University), for instance, sets out from the influences of the "circulation of images." He blurs and juxtaposes images, which are severed from their context, and questions how we perceive and consume these images that stream in front of our eyes. Another dimension of Satı's work relates to social phenomena. In his work entitled "Ballyhoo," with words such as "Vatan sağolsun," "Diyarbakır," and "CHP," which he wrote on Bally** packages, the young artist introduces an ironic interpretation to the various dynamics of the society. Another intensely ironic critical attitude is seen in Tanzer Kantık's (Dokuz Eylül University) work entitled "KK1." Investigating the differences between industrial products and art works and questioning the borders of 'design', Kantık's "warranted-for-life" 'sculpture' made of steel, wood, and velvet is introduced together with a user's manual, and also functions as a genuine pencil-breaking machine. Together with the symbolic meanings of breaking a pencil… İbrahim Tokaslan's (Mersin University) video work entitled "Tek Başına" is another work that gives a specific message. The work, furthermore, is a kind of elegy related to the war in Iraq. The picture shows Iraq as a 'case', whose name erases off and the meaning appears more distinctly as the name disappears…

We had earlier indicated that the young artists dealt with different issues in New Proposals-New Propositions exhibitions. Özerk Ergenç (Dokuz Eylül University) is one of the young artists who consider the dilemma between city and nature ?a topic that has always attracted the interests of artists? and furthermore the influences of the urban life, which at a larger scale transforms into a gigantic organism that devours the individual. In his work entitled "Ses, Bellek, Gölge," Ergenç expresses his yearning for nature in black & white, transparent, abstract urban landscapes, which at first give the impression of ghost cities. On the other hand, he conducts a kind of archaeological excavation in his living environment with some natural and cultural objects he found in nature, as if conducting a taxonomical study, builds his individual memory through these interesting findings that he records by photography. Another artist who points at those situations, which create innate contradictions in the existential condition of the contemporary individual, is Ece Burgaz (Marmara University). Considering the individual's despair against the bizarre value system of a consumption-based culture that establishes itself more legitimately every single day, Burgaz questions the possibility of resistance with images of the individuals who cannot free themselves from their sky-patterned bed sheets. We see the individual's spiritual contradictions also in Berna İpek's (Marmara University) shattered, ripped facial portraits. In these faces, which protrude from the picture's surface in a way that makes us feel the physical violence, we sense the expression of a feeling of the shattered self. Meltem Özden's (Dokuz Eylül University) work entitled "Otoportre," on the other hand, further relates to how the self is constructed. This "self-portrait," which shows the artist's own naked body, her face, her father's and her own clothes, and Baudrillard's image, questions the borders of the individual's journey in being the self. Another artist who sets out from the traces of her own life is Pınar Aksu (Marmara University). The young artist creates a visual world with the memories of her immediate environment and childhood. In this visual world, she renders visible an expression in which the spiritual fluctuations of the artist, as well as those of line, colour, and atmosphere can be sensed. The world which Göksu Gül (Marmara University) creates, also gives one the feeling of an expressionist attitude ?in this arrangement, reminiscent of sexuality, sensual pleasures and pain, gossamer, purple-coloured balloons, tubes and eggs create a personal iconography to which the artist ascribes symbolic meaning. Hümeyra Erkmen's (Mimar Sinan University) work entitled "İki Cam Arası Düşünceler," consists of short, hardly legible sentences that are placed between glass panels. Through not-read(able), thus idly floating words, the artist investigates the borders between language and thought; she endeavours to render visible, "the experience between the existence of thoughts and the state of forgetting them."

Most of these young artists are meeting with viewers for the first time. After their first stop, which the New Proposals-New Propositions exhibition provides them, they may or may not continue to travel this road. As we re-emphasize every year, the number of those who can keep up with the work under the difficult conditions of the art environment is not high. Sometimes we do not ever again come across the names we see in this exhibition series. We hope that every one of the ten names who participate in this year's show can get to the next stops without losing their artistic enthusiasm.

Ahu Antmen