In the introduction to his book Blue: The History of a Color (2000), early medieval historian Michel Pastoureau writes: “It is society that ‘makes’ color, defines it, gives it its meaning, constructs its codes and values, establishes its uses, and determines whether it is acceptable or not.” A cultural analysis of the uses of blue reveals far more than variegated shades and their associated symbolisms. Rather, the history of blue is simultaneously the history of mercantile trade, technology and empire. 

Like Pastoureau, artist Aslı Çavuşoğlu’s interest in color is not merely aesthetic. Material concerns are rife in the practice of Çavuşoğlu, whose research-based works tackle questions of evidence as they pertain to objects. For The Stones Talk, produced for Istanbul’s Arter in 2013, the artist gathered 71 archaeological artifacts from Turkey that were deemed “incomplete” or “insignificant” by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Replicating and modifying these objects to build new “wholes” that were subsequently displayed in cases with labels, the artist interrogates the roles of institutions in forming and reifying historical and national narratives. In Red/Red (2015), Çavuşoğlu develops her dissection of the relation between material and nation-building vis-à-vis two instances of the color red: Armenian red, made from ground Armenian cochineal insects; and the more saturated Turkish red, used in the national flag, both of which she features in abstract drawings of botanical patterns and designs on notebooks and worn papers. As the Armenian ink fades through the pages of the books, the Turkish red becomes bolder, signifying the contentious political relationship between the two countries as well as the extinction of the cochineal insect, native to the Ararat Plain, which spans both Armenia and Turkey, as a result of industrialization in the 20th century. 

Installed in the New Museum’s glass-partitioned lobby gallery, Çavuşoğlu’s commissioned piece, The Place of Stone (2018), catalogs a similar investigation of the color blue. The work’s title is the English translation of Sar-i Sang, the site of lapis mines in Afghanistan. A fresco illustrated across 22 Aerolam panels—commonly used for insulation—The Place of Stone tracks, in several hues, the first stable blue color found in nature and its journey from the depths of mines across trade channels, and finally, its status as a “conflict mineral” today.