Burhan Dogancay, ”Urban Decay”, 1967 © Burhan Dogancay

26.2 2015

Donation: Painting by Burhan Dogancay

A painting, Urban Decay by Burhan Dogancay (1929–2013) was recently donated to Moderna Museet. This work is now on display in the collection presentation, together with a borrowed work, Detour (1966), by the same artist, and two earlier donations.

Burhan Dogancay (1929–2013) was a world citizen – raised in Turkey, active in France, the USA and his native country, he gave up his career as an economist and diplomat in his early mid-life, in order to devote himself to art. The Moderna Museet collection already has a few key works by the artist: collage-based mixed-media paintings documenting his ambulating existence in more than 100 nations. Dogancay created an archive of time by photographing city walls, urban expressions of the many social strata. He regarded this archive, which has expanded considerably over time, as a kind of barometer of our era. It was also the starting point for his paintings, where layer on layer of paint and fragments form an intricate tapestry of contradictory statements.

Burhan Dogancay ”Detour”, 1966. Olja och blandteknik på dukremsor monterade på trä. Privat ägo./”NYC Aids Cares”, 2000. Collage och blandteknik på papper. Donation 2008 från Benjamin Kaufmann.”Neruda. Ur serien Cones”, 1989. Akryl, fumage och collage på duk. Bequest Mrs. L. Bengtsson. © Burhan Dogancay

Published 26 February 2015 · Updated 9 February 2016

News