“No Artistas is part of our iconography and appears repeatedly in the pictures. Sometimes as ‘No Art,’ ‘No Artists’ or also as ‘No Artistas,’ primarily on the shirts of the Kissing Cousins. The whole thing arose out of a critical response to a narrow-minded conception of art. As always, we react with humor and don’t take ourselves too seriously.” (Mehmet & Kazim)

At the heart of these stagings is the representation of the familial connection through their alter ego, the Kissing Cousins, whose multifaceted depictions and translations belong to the established repertoire of figures that can appear onscreen as animated clay figures in video works or also in the form of Mehmet and Kazim themselves, clothed in red Adidas sweatsuits and Superstar shoes. The artist duo repeatedly draw the viewer into their red-and-white world, which is closely connected with their artistic biographies as the children of Turkish guest workers in Germany. The cousins share the name Akal which, translated from Turkish, means “white and red.”