Ali Elmacı’s fifth solo exhibition, Blood Spoils the Dream, transforms the gallery’s three-story exhibition space into a single immersive environment. The exhibition takes its title from the popular Turkish saying, “kan görünce rüya bozulur”, and for the first time, Elmacı presents reliefs, sculptures, and paintings together, integrating them with wall-mounted paint and rose arrangements to explore contemporary notions of the sacred.
In his compositions, Elmacı examines figures within systems of power and symbols of authority, juxtaposing their imposed conditions with contrasting artistic arrangements. The exhibition features works from three series: “God, Recreate Me”, “I Live with My Wounds”, and the title series “Blood Spoils the Dream”. Unlike previous series, the figures here are dynamic and captured in motion. In “God, Recreate Me”, the tension between lived and reflected lives is explored through depictions of iconic figures such as Lady Gaga, Rihanna, and Freddie Mercury.
Roses spread across the surfaces of paintings, along with kitsch elements in costumes and compositional details, reference the artificial happiness of a system unaware of its own form. In “I Live with My Wounds”, figures inspired by Christian iconography—depicting Jesus motifs—feature bodily voids and open wounds while bearing seemingly content expressions, highlighting the persistent power dynamics between victim and oppressor.
The title series, “Blood Spoils the Dream”, creates a dreamlike setting with allegorical sculptures of female busts reminiscent of hunting trophies. Polished monochrome reliefs evoke desire and are juxtaposed with landscape paintings in the background, underscoring Elmacı’s distinctive artistic voice. At the center of the gallery, a sculptural installation presents a female figure rising from the shoulders of a male bust whose tears flow into a decorative pool, referencing the Christian altar culture while questioning the paradox of suffering and deriving pleasure from it.
Through Blood Spoils the Dream, Ali Elmacı, one of the prominent representatives of his generation, transforms a critique of power into a vivid and densely layered exhibition, using figures and symbols to convey dramatic irony and reframe painting’s referential language.