Elif Saydam

In an expanded painting practice, Elif Saydam (born 1985 in Calgary, Canada, lives in Berlin) addresses the relationship between social categories and the construction of taste. Drawing on decoration as well as the judgements and mechanisms they entail—both implicit and as exclusions—this work raises questions around valued labor, identification impulses and social mobility. Saydam's profound and humorous practice brings forth the connections between aesthetic and social ambivalences and their transgressive potential.