Mehtap Baydu Between Performance and Sculpture

Loving You Is So Hard! examines how performance, sculpture and video relate in Mehtap Baydu's practice. The three do not sit as separate categories in her work: an action turns into an object, an object turns into a recording. The exhibition's plain, everyday title matches that movement, and subjects such as intimacy, care and patience are handled at their own weight rather than translated into art-speak.

Showing performance-based work carries a familiar difficulty, since what remains after the action is video, props or photographs, and museums then present those remains as the work. In Baydu's case the remains are not secondary material; sculpture and performance are two states of one process, and the exhibition follows that logic instead of documenting it. It opened on 28 April 2026 and closes on 15 November 2026 at Arter in Dolapdere. Given the running times of the video works, allow at least an hour.