x-ist, will host the solo show of Ali Taptık "Familiar Strangers" between the 14th of February - 08 March 2008. Ali Taptık, was born in Istanbul in 1983. He graduated from the Istanbul Technical University, Faculty of Architecture. He studied documentary photography at the Swedish Nordens Fotoskola and was a full time writer/contributer to the photography magazine "Geniş Açı". His works have been exhibited in Belgium, Russia, Holland, Poland and France. Taptık's series "Accidents and Fate", which premiered at x-ist in 2006, will be exhibited this April at one of Frances most important centers for photography, Atelier de Visu and will also be part of the x-ist presentation at CIGE 2008/Beijing.
x-ist, initially débuted the works of Ali Taptık in the series "Accidents and Fate" in the exhibit "Intersection II" in 2006. This was the follow-up show to the series "Remembering Me" exhibited in Russia, Belgium, Holland and Poland. Taptık's works, exhibited widely both nationally and internationally, leave behind the classic "who and where" aspect of documentary photography, to experiment more on an emotional spectrum. In this, his latest series "Familiar Strangers", Taptık explores the Istanbul of the now, the city structure and entity juxtaposed with the presence of the individual. These images which contain element's of the familiar will lead the viewer into a unexpected side street where a chance encounter with one's self is all but inevitable. Although trained as an architect the artist does not solely reference these buildings, structures and the general cityscape technically, these images would be best regarded as metaphors for the here and now, containing strange distilled poetic imagery, with an underlying sensuality.