The First Letter

Dear İlke,

Have you noticed how sculptures made for the blind emerge through touch? Just as sight is not an ability that arrives all at once, touch is not merely about physical boundaries. The face that appears beneath a blind person’s fingertips is something that has always existed, yet it only becomes perceptible through the movement of the hand. The entire matter lies in this tension between what is seen and what is.

Art—especially sculpture—reveals the relationship between presence and absence. A sculpture takes shape as it is formed, but at the same time, it comes into being by erasing matter. Whatever lies just beneath the surface of a marble block, it is the artist’s hand that brings it forth by removing what conceals it. Like the polished surfaces of Brancusi’s work, there is a truth that becomes visible as it vanishes, and vanishes as it becomes visible.

As I said, presence only follows absence. Think of a sculpture made for the blind: before it is touched, it is merely a form—perhaps even nothing at all. But when the hand grasps it, the subtle difference between the edge of the nose and the curve of the cheek becomes distinct. As fingers trace its contours, what is missing, what is absent, what disappears into emptiness becomes just as significant. Perhaps truth can only ever be seen through absence.

If so, then one must look not at the existence of the figure, but at its disappearance. In a painter’s sketch, a model’s face begins to fade the moment the artist’s hand stops moving. A single line drawn too far, too definitively, makes the figure rigid—and in doing so, causes it to vanish. The same is true for sculpture; the moment it is complete, its presence begins to diminish.

Perhaps the greatest paradox is this: in order to show everything, one must take something away. Without subtraction, without void, there is no creation. There is no light without shadow. Sometimes, it is impossible to tell whether what we hold in our hands is an empty shell or a seed that has yet to open. Think of Brancusi’s heads—their polished surfaces are almost as pure as absence itself, yet they exist precisely because of what has been removed.

Now I find myself picturing someone holding a sculpture made for the blind—tracing it with their fingertips, trying to decipher what each curve means. Perhaps the greatest truth is the one that emerges while trying to understand what is not there.

And so, I cannot help but ask: is what we see merely a moment destined to disappear?

Yours,