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Exterior of the Pera Museum, in the Pera district of Beyoğlu, and one of the venues of the 15th Istanbul Biennial. Courtesy the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts.
15th Istanbul Biennial: “A Good Neighbour”
September 16 – November 12
Istanbul Modern, Pera Museum, Galata Greek Primary School, and other locations
Istanbul needs some healing. It’s been an especially difficult few years in Turkey. A run of elections and a contested referendum in April inflamed social tensions, and were accompanied by waves of harsh political repression, all exacerbated by last July’s thwarted military coup d’état and a string of terrorist attacks as the war in Syria spilled over the border. Along with minority groups, cultural communities have been severely impacted by the narrowing space for free speech and critical dissent, with many intellectuals and artists seeking out refuges abroad. Though recent months have been comparatively quiet, Turkey’s preeminent international art event, the 15th Istanbul Biennial is adopting a modest profile and a socially constructive framework with its title “A Good Neighbour,” as it opens mid-September in this sensitive political context.
Curated by artist-duo Elmgreen & Dragset (Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset), “A Good Neighbour” is centered around the Beyoğlu district at sites such Istanbul Modern, Galata Greek Primary School and Pera Museum, and features works by 55 artists. It was publicized in Istanbul and cities around the world with posters bearing questions such as “Is a good neighbour a stranger you don’t fear?” or “Is a good neighbour a woman in love, humming as she prepares a meal for her girlfriend?” The theme stems from the curators’ initial interest in exploring the basic conditions of societal coexistence, which have been strained not only in Turkey but countries around the world, where waves of migration have been met by neo-nationalist backlash. To that end, the Biennial has commissioned approximately 30 new projects, with a strong representation from Turkish artists who haven’t participated in past editions, including figures such as choreographer Tuğçe Tuna, who is creating a performance piece in the Küçük Mustafa Paşa Hammam, and Volkan Aslan, whose new film Home Sweet Home (2017) is screening at Istanbul Modern.
The curators know the city well already, having participated in three past Istanbul Biennials (2001, 2011, 2013). Elmgreen & Dragset have organized distinctive curatorial projects before—including at the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009, where they turned the Danish and Nordic Pavilions into the mise-en-scène of a murder mystery with their and other artists’ projects. Here in Istanbul, the duo are introducing a bit of their own meta-curatorial mischief at a space called ARK Kültür—a two-storey, Bauhaus-style family house—where curators have set the stage for a fictional character with the artwork of Mahmoud Khaled. The Biennial’s opening weeks feature a public program as well, organized by artist Zeyno Pekünlü, called “Chosen Families,” which looks at different ideas of belonging within and beyond the domestic structure. It is of course ultimately the Biennial itself—with its free admission policy and a growing popularity among the public—that aspires to be the “good neighbor,” particularly in an area of Istanbul that bears many scars of the last five years.
The 15th Istanbul Biennial, “A Good Neighbour,” opens to the public on September 16. Admission to all venues is free. The professional preview days are September 14–15. The Biennial runs through November 12.
MUSEUMS AND NONPROFITS
CANAN, Heaven, 2017, tulle curtain, sequins, rope, cloth, bell, light source, rotating mechanism. Dimensions variable. Courtesy Arter – Space for Art, Istanbul.
Canan: “Behind Mount Qaf”
September 12 – December 24
Arter is devoting its İstiklal Avenue building to a midcareer survey of Canan, whose practice stems from the aesthetics of miniature painting and the multi-faith cosmologies of the region. Curated by Nazlı Gürlek, “Behind Mount Qaf” refers to a mythical mountain in Persian and Arabic traditions. Arter’s three floors correspond to the artist’s contemporary depictions of heaven, purgatory and hell (ascending upward, no less), in newly created installations and videos that blend elements of contemporary life with mythological creatures, from auspicious dragons to malign jinn.
GÜNEŞ TERKOL and participants of the workshop led by the artist, Beautiful Days, 2017, needlework, 115 × 99 cm. Photo by Sahir Uğur Eren. Courtesy the artist and İKSV.
“Aylaklar (Flâneuses)”
September 13 – November 3
Five artists, all of them women, all of them past residents at Cité des Arts à Paris—Aslı Çavuşoğlu, İnci Furni, Yasemin Özcan, İz Öztat (along with alter ego Zişan) and Güneş Terkol—explore the motif of walking or moving through the city. Organized by Istanbul Biennial director Bige Örer, “Aylaklar (Flâneuses)” features newly created works, including a bird-box installation by İnci Furni in the courtyard, and a multimedia fabric creation made collectively by female migrants in workshops organized by Güneş Terkol.
Middle East Technical University pedestrian walkway, with faculties of Architecture and Administrative Sciences in the background, courtesy SALT Research, Altuğ-Behruz Çinici Archive.
“Commissioners’ Exhibition”
September 13 – November 26
With its Beyoğlu location still awaiting permission to re-open after being shuttered in early 2016 for violating historical building codes, SALT Galata remains the hub of the institution’s research activities. The archive-based “Commissioners’ Exhibition” looks at the important role of the patron in several architectural projects from different cities in 20th- and 21st-century Turkey, including the construction of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University. Digging further into the past, researchers look back at the key role that women (usually royal family members) played in developing Istanbul’s urban fabric during the Ottoman Empire.
DOR GUEZ, still image from the The Sick Man of Europe: The Architect, 2016–17, scanogram, dimensions variable.
Dor Guez: “The Sick Man of Europe”
September 15 – October 29
Dor Guez’s exhibition at Depo is the second part in the artist’s current project, “The Sick Man of Europe.” Curated by Yael Messer, Guez’s show narrates stories from the life of a character named “Kemal P.”—an architecture student who is recruited into the army in the 1930s and witnesses the 1938 Victory Day Parade in Ankara and the funeral of the “architect” of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Using a large collection of archival photographs, Guez’s project navigates shores of historical fiction to revisit the dynamics of male friendship and the foundation of the Turkish Republic.
AI WEIWEI, Blue and White Porcelain Plate (War), 2017, porcelain. Courtesy Ai Weiwei Studio.
Ai Weiwei: “On Porcelain”
September 12 – January 28, 2018
Sabanci University Sakıp Sabanci Museum
At the stately Sabanci Museum—located on the Bosphorus north of the second bridge—this survey of more than 100 artworks by Ai Weiwei spotlights porcelain and ceramic pieces made by the artist over four decades. With the “silk road” serving as an important point of material connection between China and Turkey, Ai at times takes an irreverent approach to the material, perhaps most infamously in his photographs of himself dropping a Han Dynasty urn, and the 100 million handmade sunflower seeds he produced for Tate Modern in 2010. Ai is fairly well-known in Turkey (Barnaby Martin’s account of Ai’s 2011 arrest, beating, and enforced disappearance, Hanging Man, has been translated into Turkish), and certainly his political activism will carry resonances in Turkey, where the government has jailed hundreds of human rights campaigners and free speech advocates.
ADRIAN PACI, still from Interregnum, 2017, video. Courtesy Kaufmann Repetto, Milan and New York; Protocinema, Istanbul and New York.
Adrian Paci & “For Rent For Sale”
September 9 – October 14
Protocinema, Hamursuz Fırını
Protocinema presents two projects during the Biennial in the Hamursuz Fırını (“Matzo Bakery”) near the Galata Tower. Upstairs is Adrian Paci’s new film, Interregnum (2017), which looks at the reactions to the death of various leaders in the 20th century. On the ground floor is the group show, “For Rent For Sale,” which considers Istanbul’s urban conditions through endeavors by Ani Çelik Arevyan, Antonio Cosentino, Gülşah Mursaloğlu, and The Soundscape of Istanbul project.
GALLERIES
HALIL ALTINDERE, 3 Cosmonaut Family Costumes, 2016, installation view of “Space Refugee” at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, 2016. Copyright Neuer Berliner Kunstverein and Hens Ziehe. Courtesy the artist and PİLOT Gallery, Istanbul.
Halil Altindere: “Welcome to Homeland”
September 14 – October 21
Sadık Pasha Mansion, Cihangir
Curated by the young collective DAS Art Project, “Welcome to Homeland” reprises several recent projects by Halil Altındere, including his series of multimedia works about the Syria cosmonaut-turned-refugee (and Istanbul resident), Muhammed Ahmed Faris.
İNCI EVINER, Underground Beuys, 2017, video still from 4k video installation with 5.1 sound: 2 min 40 sec. Courtesy Galeri Nev, Istanbul.
İnci Eviner: “Beneath the Horizon”
September 19 – October 28
Galeri Nev has joined Pi Artworks, Art Sümer, and Mixer galleries in a new building in Karaköy, not far from Istanbul Modern and the Galata Greek Primary School. Its inaugural show presents two recent video works by İnci Eviner, following their international presentations in recent editions of the Aichi Triennial and this year’s Sharjah Biennial.
Source image from FERHAT ÖZGÜR’s exhibition “Animal Farm” at The Pill, Istanbul.
Ferhat Özgür: “Animal Farm”
September 9 – November 4
George Orwell’s allegorical novella about totalitarian governments gets an Istanbul re-invention by Ferhat Özgür, in an exhibition that features a massive installation of deconstructed ballot-boxes, and a wall-to-wall photo installation of illustrated pages from the Rare Birds Atlas.
ERINÇ SEYMEN, Perpetuum Mobile, 2017, ink pen on paper, 83 × 83 cm. Courtesy Zilberman Gallery, Istanbul and Berlin.
Erinç Seymen: “Homo Fragilis”
September 13 – November 4
Highly regarded as a meticulous and inventive draughtsperson, Erinç Seymen continues to expand his repertoire of media in “Homo Fragilis,” with works exploring the psychosexual and capitalist machinery of contemporary society and social structures.
From NANCY ATAKAN’s fabric project “A Community of Lines.” Courtesy Pi Artworks, Istanbul and London.
Nancy Atakan: “A Community of Lines”
September 11 – October 21
Nancy Atakan has been an active figure in the Istanbul art scene for five decades, maintaining a longstanding interest in the history of Turkey’s textile industry. Curated by Aslı Seven, “A Community of Lines,” mounted at Pi Artworks’s new Karaköy space, features her latest embroided works that thread together intergenerational stories based on family photographs that reveal the conflicted place of women in the country’s modernization.
Digital rendering of SAHAND HESAMIYAN’s Majaz (2017) at Büyük Valide Han No. 53, Eminönü, Istanbul.
Sahand Hesamiyan: “Majaz”
September 13 – November 30
BLOK Art Space & Büyük Valide Han No. 53
“Majaz” (meaning “unreal”) features Tehran-based sculptor Sahand Hesamiyan’s newly created architectural structure, made in collaboration with architect Buşra Tunç, based on the forms of the 17th-century inn Büyük Valide Han, located on Istanbul’s historic peninsula. A second venue, in Beyoğlu, displays objects and materials related to the installation.
CONSTANTINOS TALIOTIS, image from the “Paradise Productions” series, 2017. Courtesy of Pilot Galeri, Istanbul.
Constantinos Taliotis: “Paradise Productions”
September 12 – October 21
Interested in the conjunctures of architecture and cinema, Constantinos Taliotis has been looking at the rise of the VHS industry in his native Cyprus. As elsewhere in the 1980s, home-entertainment systems gave rise to new forms of interior furnishings, and Taliotis’s show at PİLOT is a throwback to the 8-bit universe of Atari and Nintendo NES.
THE ART FAIR
Contemporary Istanbul
Preview: September 13; opens September 14–17
Istanbul Congress Center, Istanbul Lütfi Kırdar Convention and Exhibition Center
Istanbul’s homegrown art fair continues into its 12th year, and continues to attract a mix of regional and international galleries. Popular with Turkish socialites, a few entertainment stars are always present on the opening night of Contemporary Istanbul. This edition’s newcomers including Galleria Continua (San Gimignano, Beijing, Les Moulins and Habana), Leila Heller (Dubai and New York), Plan B (Cluj and Berlin), and London’s Victoria Miro, which will be joining the many loyal Turkish and regional exhibitors.
HG Masters is ArtAsiaPacific’s editor at large.
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