Cemile Sahin It Would Have Taught Me Wisdom (Turkey), 2021

A major motif of Cemile Sahin's colored plexiglass panels with digitally printed elements is a digitally reconstructed 3D model of a porcelain statue—an écritoire, or inkwell, above which the goddess Minerva sits enthroned—which was the centerpiece on the table where the Sèvres treaty was signed and which the artist had printed based on documentation she discovered in the course of her research into the treaties of Sèvres (1920) and Lausanne (1923) and their ongoing impact a century later. In Sahin's work, the goddess has been marked more prominently in the garb of war: her flowing robe bears the camouflage patterns of modern combat uniforms, in this case those of Turkey.