Take off your eyes
Hande Sever
- Price
- Free Admission*
- Genre
- Art
- Season
- Winter/Spring 2025
- DATE
- MAY 22-AUG 10
- HOURS
- WED-SUN, 12 PM-6 PM
* Discounts available for REDCAT members, students & the CalArts faculty and staff
Join the conversation in the REDCAT LOUNGE
About
Opening Reception: May 22 at 7 PM
Hande Sever (Art MFA ‘18) explores cultural and political archives by excavating texts and images that shape historical narratives. Often drawing from her own family’s history of persecution, her work examines the intersection of personal and collective memory, particularly in the context of military violence, surveillance, and censorship. Take off your eyes presents two bodies of work rooted in Southern California collections. To Thread Air (2023) is based on research Sever conducted in the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum, and examines the relationship between the former actor and US President and Kenan Evren, former Turkish President and right-wing leader of the 1980 Turkish coup d’etat. Stemming from an album held in the Ottoman Empire photography collection of the Getty Research Institute, In Search of ‘My Beloved Pauline’ (2025) follows the path of a German soldier who documented sites of colonization throughout and beyond the Ottoman Empire from 1917–1918.
This exhibition is co-curated by Daniela Lieja Quintanar, Chief Curator and Deputy Director, Programs and Talia Heiman, Assistant Curator.
Hande Sever: Take off your eyes is made possible through generous funding from Betsy Greenberg. The artwork In Search of My Beloved Pauline by Hande Sever is funded in part with support by the Eidolon Center for Everyday Photography, the Allianz Foundation, and the Hrant Dink Foundation.
about the artist
Hande Sever is a writer and research-based artist from Istanbul, currently based in Los Angeles. Her work explores archives and the excavation of lost texts and distant images, focusing on how the production and dissemination of these materials shape historical narratives. Sever’s work has been exhibited internationally at the Hauser & Wirth in Somerset; Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna; Czong Institute for Contemporary Art in Seoul; Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago; and the Wende Museum of the Cold War in Culver City, among others. Sever’s work has been supported by grants from the Félix González-Torres Foundation, California Arts Council, Eidolon Center for Everyday Photography, and the Hrant Dink Foundation.
