The Face and Its Contents

Description: Weaving together a historical fiction piece written by the artist with archival photographs and documents, The Face and Its Contents explores the interplay of power, image-making, and historical silence. At its core is sculptor Georg Kolbe’s time in Istanbul (1916–1917) within the social milieu of the German Embassy during World War I. Tracing Kolbe’s commissions through personal correspondences, photographic fragments from the Georg Kolbe Museum’s archives, and official records from the Historical Institute of Deutsche Bank and the Krikor Guerguerian Archive at Clark University, the installation reconstructs Kolbe’s entanglements with colonial infrastructure projects, war propaganda, and the ideological aesthetics of empires. Through the narrative emerging from archival traces, The Face and Its Contents interrogates the complicity of artistic production in structures of violence, examining how Kolbe’s bust-making enshrines power while obscuring acts of erasure and genocide.

Image Description: Exhibition views, Tea and Dry Biscuits, Georg Kolbe Museum, 2025. Photo: Enric Duch.