Cevdet Erek: chiçiçiçichi

The new performance and installation by Cevdet Erek (Turkish, born 1974), chiçiçiçichi, takes its cue from everyday life: how our footsteps strike the pavement, how our fingers gently play a railing or a fence, or how a small stone hitting a glass window makes a sharp sound when we try to get a friend’s attention in the middle of the night. Each sound—a percussive proposal—designates a different movement and a change in proximity to the objects we encounter to produce this daily symphony.

Erek’s practice as a musician, architect, and visual artist revolves around sound as a measure for space, time, and the world around us. Erek’s new work, chiçiçiçichi, uses the gallery wall in the museum’s Griffin Court as both instrument and musical score. Conflating representation and performance, Erek adds various forms of visual and written language to the wall that are meant to be interpreted as sound instructions, while the same wall is host to architectural interventions played in live performances as part of the installation. Erek’s own musical patterns and rhythms are integrated into Griffin Court to suggest a pace, to impact how our bodies navigate that space, and to designate our distance or proximity to architecture and sound.

chiçiçiçichi is the first installment of Iterations, a series of new performance commissions. Erek opens the installation with a performance on February 28 at 6:00. Intermittent performances will be announced throughout the run of the installation - contact the museum for information.