Pathways: Sarp Kerem Yavuz, OC ’13

Please join the art department for this lecture series presented by studio art alumni. 

Senior Studio and Thesis prepares our majors to launch into the competitive art world. Meet art department alumni and hear first-hand how they navigated life with a BA in Art. Each alum in this series represents a different career pathway. 

The works of Sarp Kerem Yavuz reclaim Orientalist imagery and bring the visual legacy of the Middle East into the present. Through photography, light projection, neon sculpture and digital drawing, he creates visually provocative works of art in pursuit of peaceful coexistence. Born in Paris in 1991 and raised in Istanbul, his works explore gender, politics, religion, and violence.  

He is the recipient of several international accolades, including the 2019 Leslie Lohman  Museum Artist Fellowship, the 2016 Palm Springs Photo Festival Emerging Photographer award, presented by Leica Camera, the 2013 New Artists Society Award from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the 2013 Leah Freed Memorial Prize from the Oberlin College Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies. In 2013, he became the youngest artist to exhibit and be included in the permanent collection of the Istanbul Modern Museum. His artworks are published in Turkey: Istanbul CODEX, and the Boys! book benefitting the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

His photographs are included in The Luciano Benetton Collection as part of Imago Mundi, the JPMorgan Chase Collection, and the permanent collections of the CICA Museum in South Korea, the Norton Museum in Florida, the Allen Memorial Art Museum and the Transformer Station in Ohio, the Polaroid (Impossible Project) Collection in Berlin, the Soho House Collection in Istanbul and New York, and The Marmara Hotel Collection in New York. He has participated in over 30 exhibitions in Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Venice, Sydney, Amman, London, Shanghai, Dubai, New York, Chicago and Istanbul. He currently lives and works between New York and Istanbul. 

This event is presented with support from the Ellen Johnson Endowment for Contemporary Art.