Fountain 2004

Nezaket Ekici was born in Turkey and moved to Germany when she was young. Her work has covered a great many genres, including performance, installation and video art, even though performance art has invariably provided the central conceptual expressive framework. She starts out from life experience, transforming her own body into a medium for realizing acts and conveying the cultural issues with which she is most familiar. In this piece, Ekici plays the role of a sculpture, wearing a dress made out of 60 transparent bags filled with water. A valve in the pocket controls the speed and direction of the spurting water and as it drains away, the female form behind the bags gradually becomes discernible. This symbolizes that fountain-type behavior of men and forms a clear contrast, highlighting the artist’s use of the issue of “gender differences” as expressed in the culture of fashion.