With Lass deinen Regen regnen (Kendi Yağmurunu Yağdırmak), the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden is presenting the largest solo exhibition of the artist Mehtap Baydu in Germany to date.
The exhibition highlights Baydu's long-standing multimedia and performative practice, in which she explores culturally shaped gender images, role perceptions and their transformation over time. In her works, she consciously crosses boundaries, assumes so-called "male roles", expands traditional "female roles" and performatively plays with the other's view of her own self. In doing so, she explores the meanings of various objects and symbolisms as well as their narratives in different cultural circles - be it through themes such as the dowry tradition in the Turkish and Kurdish context, proverbs, religious signs or everyday actions. A recurring element is the reference to rituals that have developed in female communities - rituals of trust, hope and silence.
The exhibition highlights Baydu's long-standing multimedia and performative practice, in which she explores culturally shaped gender images, role perceptions and their transformation over time. In her works, she consciously crosses boundaries, assumes so-called "male roles", expands traditional "female roles" and performatively plays with the other's view of her own self. In doing so, she explores the meanings of various objects and symbolisms as well as their narratives in different cultural circles - be it through themes such as the dowry tradition in the Turkish and Kurdish context, proverbs, religious signs or everyday actions. A recurring element is the reference to rituals that have developed in female communities - rituals of trust, hope and silence.
Mehtap Baydu ist Performance- und Installationskünstlerin. Sie konzentriert sich auf Geschlechterrollen und sensible religiöse und politische Themen in kulturübergreifenden Kontexten. Sie bezieht das Publikum in ihre Performances ein und fordert es mit symbolischen Objekten und Situationen heraus. Baydu studierte Bildhauerei an der Hacettepe-Universität und an der Kunsthochschule Kassel. Sie erhielt zahlreiche Auszeichnungen, darunter Stipendien der Robert Wilson Foundation und der Kulturakademie Tarabya sowie den Kunstpreis der Städtischen Galerie Nordhorn 2021. Ihre Arbeiten wurden in zahlreichen Einzelausstellungen gezeigt, darunter Der Wald war noch nackt, Galeri Nev, Ankara, 2022, Durchlässigkeit, Städtische Galerie Nordhorn, Nordhorn, 2022, Cuma Edition Block, Berlin, 2018. Baydu war 2024 Gastprofessorin an der Akademie der Künste Berlin. Sie lebt und arbeitet in Berlin.
