In the Art World it’s pretty common to meet peoples spouses- less so their parents. But this October Osman Can Yerebakan brought his mum along for the ride.
“What is going on here?” asked my mom in front of a painting with two face-less men. “It is about relinquishing your senses with all the chaos surrounding us,” I, with an aloofness which echoed the eerie duo’s detachment on the canvas, replied. We were inside the massive Frieze tent at the Regent’s Park, and yes, I was attending the preview day with my mother. Familiar faces were gushing through us as I chatted with some and let others get away. This was the clash of two worlds of mine: My one self of her mother’s son who grew up in Turkey with her and now visits every summer, while my other way of being was in his own element, an art writer who lives in the thick of New York circuit. I was also amidst a face-off of two languages. There was the Turkish-speaking original version of mine who preceded the people passing by. My English-adaptation who was chitchatting with his colleagues was however foreign to my mom who doesn’t speak the language, the art lingo or English.
I had tested the waters a night prior at Thaddaeus Ropac and Pace Gallery’s joint dinner at Il Gattopardo in Mayfair. “I am here with my mom,” I said to friends pointing at her with my non-wine holding hand. “Aww” was the lingering reaction at the fabulous passing dinner. She at first thought the echoing awws meant they felt bad for her. I explained that the reaction translates to heartwarming as we munched on risotto. A mum is a companion that anyone would want to bring to an art week yet they perhaps wouldn’t. They represented a world prior, the firsthand witness to a raw self of teenage insecurities, embarrassing fandoms, and futile jabs at early professionalism.
At Frieze, she and I scanned the outfits as much as the art; we enjoyed and critiqued them equally. I also found a relief in casually speaking about what I talk and write about everyday in a language I don’t share with my colleagues, but instead with the person whom I said my first words to. I was like a child again but with adult opinions. If contemporary art proposes an open-ended unfamiliarity for its outsiders, I was here to fix that for my own kin.
My mum had indeed come to Frieze New York with me six years ago, but back then, we had relatives with us and the breezy ferry ride to the Randall’s Island had rendered the outing as a tourist-y attraction. In London, I was also a tourist and the ornate streets of Marylebone had immediately sucked us into the largest olympics of my career choice. We went all for it around over 150 galleries—booth after booth, we were roaming my other life which had both geographic and performative—not to forget linguistic—distance to her.
Visiting any art affair with a non-art world companion promises its own feats of explaining what we are looking at. Here, however, I had found a particular thrill in stomping the grounds of a major affair with the person I would like to prove my life choices. We were immersed in the reason I lived in another continent and looking at the means I make a living with. A mirror art was unsurprisingly a main draw for my mom. At Karma’s booth, we posed in front of Mungo Thomson’s enamel wall work February 25, 1991 (The Beginning of the End) (2024) which framed us inside a Time magazine cover. Like many, she marveled at Benedikte Bjerre’s installation of 125 inflated helium penguins rocking over the entire booth of the Copenhagen gallery Palace Enterprise. She felt sympathy for Billy Childish’s live painting studio at Lehmann Maupin’s booth which he operated with his two sons—family bonding! The walk from Frieze towards Frieze Masters inside the park might be her favorite part: the long stretch of the tree-lined path which ran parallel to the outdoor works in Frieze Sculpture could be my peak of the day, as well. Our pilgrimage with other fair goers felt ritualistic and transient, not only between the time periods of two fairs but also in our own bonding when she was out of her comfort zone and I was bridging between my two selves. What is next for us? Another fair marathon together this week: Contemporary Istanbul where the language barrier is lifted but the promise of another transformative journey is not compromised.
Words by Osman Can Yerebakan
