Rey Akdogan

Commercial Street is pleased to present Lost Record, an exhibition by Rey Akdogan. Incorporated into the exhibition are the exterior space and the façade of the gallery, the gated entryway, the interior of the gallery, an area behind a false wall visible only by an exterior window, and the gallery's distribution channels.

The works on the inner walls of the gallery are from an ongoing series called Subtractions. Typically using magazine advertising pages, Rey subtracts and reconfigures the atmospheric and surface properties by folding, cutting, layering, and coating, to reduce both the visual content and materiality of the image to its most vaporous state. The extant remains of an original image partition us between an assumption of knowing a nearly evident subject and an ouroboros of rationalizing its parts, as we are left with only the essence of an environment and its ghost image. Diffused into the space from the back corner of the gallery, polyester lighting gel Lee #328 is used as the only artificial light source of the exhibition. Visible only from a set of exterior windows on the side of the building, is the work Backstage, an approximately 20” deep space between a fabricated wall and the original wall of the gallery, which includes the architectural features, the materials of the wall production and an air conditioning unit.

Outside, Slit drape (P) sits as a pile of coated and pigmented aluminum, creeping over the ledge onto the façade and into the street. Subjected to the environment, to the temporality of the immediate surroundings of the gallery, and the cinematic potential of its own inherent abilities, it performs as if possessed under new and changing conditions.

Available as a free takeaway is Lost Record, the titular work of the exhibition, a fictitious record sleeve.

A special version has been produced in an Edition of 25, which contains a relief print with lithographic ink on uncoated paper, of a vinyl record.