Feridun Zaimoglu
KanakAttack
The Turk’s third siege?

‘My thing is not the niche,’ says German-Turkish author Feridun Zaimoglu, ‘my thing is the offensive counterattack.’ Using the means of art. Zaimoglu does not conceal the façades by making them disappear, but by transforming them into a Turkish tent with hundreds of Turkish flags of various sizes.

Feridun Zaimoglu is primarily known as a writer. Born in Bolu, Anatolia, in 1964 and living in Germany for more than 30 years, he presents a picture of second- and third-generation German emigrants in his books Kanak Sprak, Abschaum and Koppstoff. A picture of those who play in the ‘league of the damned,’ who defend themselves against the ‘remnants of their homeland’ as well as against a folkloric understanding of multiculturalism or pressure to integrate that seeks to impose German customs on them. They have no home other than Germany and cannot ‘wipe their origins off their faces.’ ‘With KanakAttack, Kunsthalle Wien wants to address the political, symbolic and aesthetic challenges of Turkey's accession to the EU in the context of the controversial debates surrounding the EU enlargement negotiations,’ says director Gerald Matt, explaining the Kunsthalle Wien's motivation for installing Feridun Zaimoglu's flag installation on the façade of the building.