Words Are Very Unnecessary

Arter initiates a new publication series, Arter Background, to accompany exhibitions drawn from its collection, which holds more than 1,300 works of art as of 2019. This second book in the series accompanies the exhibition Words Are Very Unnecessary, a collection-based group exhibition that takes its title from the lyrics in the 1990 Depeche Mode song Enjoy the Silence. Curated by Selen Ansen, the exhibition revolves around the concepts of gesture, remains and trace. In the book, excerpts of texts selected around the ideas active in the curatorial process are complemented by new essays written specifically for this context. It thus features texts on themes associated with vain gestures, hands, quotidian movements, daily objects, remains, non-gestures, remnants, dust, gestures of destruction, gestures of apology and the act of writing, and commissioned essays by Sevinç Çalhanoğlu, Cemal Ener, and Nora Tataryan. With contributions by Vito Acconci • Giorgio Agamben • Roland Barthes • Georges Bataille • Samuel Beckett • İlhan Berk • Thomas Bernhard • Robert Bresson • John Cage • Sophie Calle • Sevinç Çalhanoğlu • François Dagognet • Fernand Deligny • Emily Dickinson • Brian Dillon • Cemal Ener • Esther Ferrer • Vilém Flusser • Ferreira Gullar • Eva Hesse • Susan Howe • Tim Ingold • Donald Judd • Allan Kaprow • Ali Kazma • Milan Knížák • Alison Knowles • Bruno Latour • Ercümend Behzad Lav • André Leroi-Gourhan • Bruno Munari • Georges Perec • Francis Ponge • Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz • Paul Regnard • Pierre Sansot • İskender Savaşır • W.G. Sebald • Anita Sezgener • Daniel Spoerri • Nora Tataryan • Robert Walser • Aby Warburg