Meeting Europe – Istanbul exhibitions / projections / publication25-30 November 2009 Wacken Exhibition Centre, Strasbourgwithin the framework of st-art’09, 14th Strasbourg Contemporary Art FairProjected Visions35 years of Turkish video artArtists: Haka…
Viewing 1 to 20 of 24 items
Ramazan Bayrakoğlu @ Istanbul Next Wave
EŞZAMANLILIK-KOŞUTLUK-KARŞITLIK
Modern ve Çağdaş Sanat Sergisi
İstanbul-Berlin 20. yıl Kardeşşehir projeleri çerçevesinde İstanbul Büyük Şehir Belediyesi, Akademie der Künste ve Berlin Senatosu işbirliğiyle gerçekleşen bir projedir.
Küratörler: Çetin Güzelhan (Başküratör), Beral Madra, Levent Çalıkoğlu, Johannes Odenthal
12.11.2009 – 03.01.2010, Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz
12.11.2009 – 17.01.2010, Martin-Gropius-Bau und Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg
Türkler kadar Avrupa’yla yakιn ilişkileri olan ve son bin yιllιk tarihi “Eşzamanlı-Koşut-Karşıt” pozisyonlarla paylaşan başka bir İslam Ülkesi bulunmamaktadır. Ortaçağdan günümüze Türkler ve Avrupalılar bir çok alanda hem birbirlerine rakip hem de dost olmuşlardır. Bu tarihsel süreç her iki kültürün de sanatlarına yansιmιştιr.
2009 Berlin-Istanbul 20. yιl etkinlikleri çerçevesinde gerçekleştirilecek “Istanbul Next Wave, Eşzamanlιlιk-Koşutluk-Karşιtlιk” sergisi bu yakιn ilişkiyi ve ortak tarihi süreci, sanat tarihi araçlarıyla Istanbul´un bakιş açιsιndan ele almaktadιr. Uluslararasι büyük bir saygιnlιğι olan Martin Gropius Bau, Akademie der Künste Pariser Platz ve Hanseaten Weg´de gerçekleştirilecek bu sergiyle Türkiye´nin çağdaş sanatι ilk defa bu kapsamlιlιkta ve bütünlükte Avrupa da gösterilmiş olacaktιr.
Istanbul, müslüman ve aynι zamanda levanten geleneğiyle özgün bir metropoldür ve tarihsel sürecinde kendine has bir Modernlik yaratmıştır. Bu süreç Atatürk´ün Cumhuriyeti kurmasıyla yeni bir ivme kazanmıştır. Istanbul’un, bin yıllara dayanan kültür zenginliği, hem bu şehrin insanlarına hem de zengin sanat ortamına baz oluşturmaktadır. Bunun arkasında kültürel katmanların kompleks ve karmaşık bağıntıları vardır. Istanbul kendine güç santralı haline getirdiği bu özelliği ile emsalsizdir.
Küratörler ekibi, Çetin Güzelhan´ın öncülüğünde, çesitli vurgularla Türkiye´nin modernliğini değişik açılardan sunmaktalar. Martin Gropius Bau Müzesinde „Istanbul Modern Berlin“ başlιğι altιnda ülkemiz sanatιnιn genel bir tanιtιmι yapιlacaktιr. İstanbul´un tarihten günümüze süregelen ihtişamı ve özellikle İslam kültüründeki yenilikçi özel konumu bu bölümün girişinde multimedyal görseller ile sunulacak. Buradan orjinal eserlerden oluşan kιsιmlara geçilip güncel sanata kadar olan sanat tarihimiz genel bir bakιşla tanιtιlacak. (Küratörler: Levent Çalוkoğlu, Çetin Güzelhan). Pariser Platz’da geçmişten günümüze kadιn sanatçιlar ve kadιn hareketleri bilgi panolarιyla sunulacak. Orjinal yapιtlardan oluşan ana sergi, 1980 lerden günümüze Istanbul sanat ortamιnιn dinamizmini kadιn sanatçιlarla sergileyecek. (Küratörler: Beral Madra, Çetin Güzelhan).
Hanseatenweg´de Istanbul´un kosmopolit yapιsιndaki değişik sanaçι pozisyonlarιndan bir kesit sergilenecek. Eleştirel bir tavιrla, toplumsal konularι ve çelişkileri eserlerine yansιtan sanatçιlarιmιz burada bir araya getirilecek. Böylelikle Istanbul´un çok katmanlι ve çeşitli sanat zenginliği Berlin´de tanιtιlmιş olacaktιr. (Küratörler: Çetin Güzelhan und Johannes Odenthal).
SANATÇILAR
Istanbul Modern Berlin Martin-Gropius-Bau
Haluk Akakçe, 1970
Erol Akyavaş, 1932 – 1999
Özdemir Altan, 1931
Avni Arbas, (1919 – 2003)
Hale Asaf, 1905/1906 – 1938
Ferruh Başağa, 1914
Bedri Baykam, 1957
Ramazan Bayrakoglu, 1966
Aliye Berger, 1903 – 1974
Nurullah Berk, 1906 – 1982
Sabri Berkel, 1907 – 1993
Semiha Berksoy, 1910 – 2004
Bubi, 1956
Cihat Burak, 1915 – 1994
Ibrahim Çalli, 1882 – 1960
Ali Avni Celebi, 1904 – 1933
Taner Ceylan, 1967
Adnan Çoker, 1927
Cevat Dereli, 1900 – 1989
Nejat Melih Devrim, 1923 – 1995
Ismet Dogan, 1957
Burhan Doğançay, 1929
Feyhaman Duran, 1886 – 1970
Ayşe Erkmen, 1949
İnci Eviner, 1956
Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu, 1911 – 1975
Leyla Gediz, 1974-
Hamit Görele, 1894 – 1981
Mehmet Güleryüz, 1938-
Nedim Günsür, 1924 – 1994
Nazmi Ziya Güran, 1881 – 1937
Mustafa Horasan, 1965
Balkan Naci İslimyeli, 1947
Doğan İsmet, 1957
Ergin İnan, 1943
Nuri İyem, 1915 – 2005
Zeki Faik İzer, 1905 – 1988
Gülsün Karamustafa, 1946
Zeki Kocamemi, 1900-1959
Temür Köran, 1960
Komet, 1941
İrfan Önürmen, 1958
Erkan Özgen, 1971
Şener Özmen, 1971
Hikmet Onat, 1882 – 1977
Ahmet Oran, 1957
Mübin Orhon, 1924 – 1981
Mustafa Pancar, 1964
Orhan Peker, 1926 – 1978
Sarkis, 1938
Yusuf Taktak, 1951
Hale Tenger, 1960
Cemal Tollu, 1899 -1968
Canan Tolon, 1955
Selim Turan, 1915 – 1994
Ömer Uluç, 1931
Adnan Varinca, 1918
Nil Yalter, 1938
Pınar Yolaçan, 1981
Fahrelnissa Zeid, 1901 – 1991
Boden unter meine Füßen, nicht den Himmel Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz
Yeşim Ağaoğlu
Gülçin Aksoy, 1965
Nancy Atakan, 1946
Atıl Kunst
Nazan Azeri, 1953
Handan Börüteçene, 1957
Ipek Duben, 1941
Nezaket Ekici, 1970
Gözde İlkin, 1981
Gül Ilgaz, 1962
Cemile Kaptan, 1977
Şükran Moral, 1962
Nazlı Eda Noyan, 1974
Neriman Polat, 1968
Necla Rüzgar, 1972
Gülay Semercioğlu, 1968
Nalan Yırtmaç, 1969
Sechs Positionen kritischer Kunst aus Istanbul Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg
Halil Altındere, 1971
Bedri Baykam, 1957
Altan Gürman, (1935 – 1976)
Balkan Naci İslimyeli, 1947
Şükran Moral, 1962
İrfan Önürmen, 1958
KÜRATÖRLER
Çetin Güzelhan Küratör ve Sanat Tarihçisidir. İstanbul Tatbiki Güzel Sanatlar Akademisini bitirdikten sonra, Istanbul Devlet Güzel Sanatlar Akademisi’ndeki Yüksek Lisans öğrenimine (Adnan Çoker) başladι ve Alman Devlet Bursuyla (DAAD) Hamburg Güzel Sanatlar Akademisinde tamamladι. Daha sonra Hamburg Üniversitesi Sanat- ve Kültürtarihi bölümünü bitirdi. Mastιr çalιşmasιnι Londra Aby Warburg Enstitüsü ve Oxford Bodlean Kütüphanesinde burslu olarak yapmιştιr. Aby Warburg hakkιnda Topkapı Müzesi Arşivinde 1992 ile 1994 yılları arasında araştırmalarda bulunmuş olup, 1984 yılından itibaren Almanya ve Türkiye’de pek çok küratörsel ve sanat tarihi konulu çalışmalar yapmıştır. Kendisi 2007 yılından itibaren “Contemporary Istanbul” Sanat Fuarı’nın küratör ve sanat danışmanıdır. Çetin Güzelhan “Istanbul Next Wave” Berlin Sergisinin Baş Küratörlüğünü yapmaktadır.
Beral Madra sanat eleştirmeni ve küratördür. Kendisi İstanbul’da yaşamakta ve çalışmakta olup, 1984 yılından itibaren BM Contemporary Art Center’i, 2007 yılından itibaren BM-Suma Galerideki merkezden BM Contemporary Art Center’i yönetmektedir. Birinci (1987) ve ikinci (1989) İstanbul Bianelini koordine etmiş, Türk sanatçıları ile 43., 45., 49., 50. ve 51. Venedik Bianellerindeki sergilerin küratörlüğünü yapmıştır. Kendisi 1984 yılından itibaren yerel ve uluslararası sanatçıların solo veya grup sergilerini İstanbul’da kendi sanat merkezinde ve diğer resmi sanat kuruluşlarında organize etmektedir. Beral Madra 1995 yılından itibaren Berlin Senatosu’nun İstanbul Burslu Öğrenciler Programı’nın sanatsal sorumlusudur. Ayrıca Diyarbakır Art Centre’nin (2002 yılının Eylül ayında kurulmuştur) kurucu üyesi, Türkiye AICA’nın kurucu üyesi ve başkanı (2003 yılında kurulmuştur) olup, AMCA’nın (Association for Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey, www.amcainternational.org) kurucularındandır. En yeni sergileri şunlardır: Check in Europe, Münih Avrupa Patent Dairesi, 2006; Sinopale, küratör danışmanı Ağustos 2006 ve 2008; Neighbours in Dialogue, Sarayevo Ars Aevi Kolleksiyonu Sergisi, 2007 yılında Istanbul’da, 2008 yılında Sarayevo’da; Captivated by Bakhchesaray, Crimea, 2008; Between Arrival and Departure-Istanbul Scholarship Artists, 2009; Making Interstices, Merkezi Asya Pavyonu, 35. Venedig Bineyali, 2009. Beral Madra Kültür Başkenti İstanbul 2010’nun eğitici sanatlar bölümünün yöneticisidir. Kendisi 1980 yılından itibaren günlük gazeteler için makaleler ve eleştiriler yazmakta olup, 1999 yılından itibaren Radikal’de yazarlık yapmaktadır. En son yayınları: “Neighbours in Dialogue”, yayımcı Beral Madra/Ayşe Orhun Gültekin, Norgunk Publishers, Istanbul, 2007 ve “MAIDAN”, yayımcı Beral Madra, BMCAC Yayınları, İstanbul, 2007. Beral Madra “Istanbul Next Wave” için Pariser Platz’daki Sanatlar Akademisi’nde Çetin Güzelhan ile birlikte “Boden unter meinen Füßen, nicht den Himmel” sergisinin küratörlüğünü yapmaktadır.
Levent Çalוkoğlu küratör ve sanat eleştirmenidir. İstanbul Modern Sanat Müzesi’nin şef küratörlüğünü yürütmektedir. Çalוkoğlu, Ankara Üniversitesi’nde sanat tarihi (Bachelor of Arts) lisans ve İstanbul Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi’nde müzecilik (Master of Arts) yükseklisans öğrenimi görmüştür. Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi Sanat Yönetimi Bölümü’nde öğretim görevlisi olarak ders vermektedir. Modern ve Çağdaş Türk Sanat Tarihi hakkında yayınlanmış pekçok makalesi bulunmaktadır. 1998 yılından bu yana ulusal ve uluslararası ölçekte pek çok serginin küratörlüğünü üstlenmiştir. İstanbul Modern, yine İstanbul’da bulunan Akbank Sanat, Yildiz Teknik Üniversitesi Sanat Galerisi ile Londra’da bulunan Space Triangle Gallery küratörlüğünü yaptığı sergilere evsahipliği yapmış kurumlardan bazılarıdır. Son olarak İstanbul Modern’de “Yeni Yapıtlar Yeni Ufuklar” adlı sergiyi düzenlemiştir (2009). Levent Çalוkoğlu “Istanbul Next Wave” çerçevesinde Çetin Güzelhan ile birlikte Martin-Gropius-Binası’ndaki “Istanbul Modern Berlin” sergisinin küratörlüğünü yapmaktadır.
Johannes Odenthal sanat tarihçisi ve yayıncı olup, 2006 yılından itibaren Berlin Sanatlar Akademisi’nin program görevlisi olarak çalışmaktadır. Kendisi Kolonya, Bonn ve Paris kentlerinde sanat tarihi ve arkeoloji öğrenimi görmüştür. 1986 yılında Tanz Aktuell magazinini kurmuştur. Bu magazin 1993 yılında kendisi tarafından yeni kurulan Ballett International/Tanz Aktuell magazininde sonlanmıştır. Buna paralel olarak pek çok Avrupa kültür projelerinin öncülüğünü ve organizasyonunu yapmıştır. Kendisi 1997 ile 2006 yılları arasında Berlin Dünya Kültürleri Evi’nde müzik, dans ve tiyatro bölümünün sanatsal yöneticiliğini ve diğerleri yanısıra Performing-Arts-Festivals IN TRANSIT’in girişimciliğini yapmıştır. Ağırlık noktalarını çağdaş sanatlar, kültür tarihi ve İnterkültüralite oluşturmakta olup, bu konu alanlarında pek çok sayıda kitaplar ve çalışmalar yayınlamıştır. Johannes Odenthal „Istanbul Next Wave” kapsamında Çetin Güzelhan ile birlikte Hanseatenweg’deki akademi binasında çağdaş Türk sanatçılarının politik pozisyonu konulu serginin küratörlüğünü yapmaktadır.
Comments Off
Zekai Ormancı Anısına… /// Mine Sanat Galerisi /// 6 Kasım – 6 Aralık
Mine Sanat Galerisi’nin kurulmasına önemli bir katkısı olan Ressam Prof. Zekai Ormancı’nın 2008 yılının Nisan ayında aramızdan ayrılması bizleri derinden üzdü. Kıymetli sanatçımızın anısına 6 Kasım – 6 Aralık 2009 tarihleri arasında galerimiz Nişantaşı mekanında eserlerini ve atölyesinden sürpriz görselleri sizlere sunacağız.
Sanatçımızın Türk resim sanatındaki önemini sanatseverlerimize tekrar hatırlatmak, unutturmamak ve böylece genç sanatçılarımıza örnek [...]
Comments Off
Zekai Ormancı Anısına… /// Mine Sanat Galerisi /// 6 Kasım – 6 Aralık
Mine Sanat Galerisi’nin kurulmasına önemli bir katkısı olan Ressam Prof. Zekai Ormancı’nın 2008 yılının Nisan ayında aramızdan ayrılması bizleri derinden üzdü. Kıymetli sanatçımızın anısına 6 Kasım – 6 Aralık 2009 tarihleri arasında galerimiz Nişantaşı mekanında eserlerini ve atölyesinden sürpriz görselleri sizlere sunacağız.
Sanatçımızın Türk resim sanatındaki önemini sanatseverlerimize tekrar hatırlatmak, unutturmamak ve böylece genç sanatçılarımıza örnek [...]
Comments Off
SERGİ / EXHIBITION
Urban Bridges
An Exhibition in Galery Nauwieser 19
28.9.- 4.10 2009
Curators: Mtaär – Mert Akbal – Dragana Pesic
Artists : Brankica Končarević, Slavica Lazić Dundas, Nevena Popović, Milena Putnik, Maja Rakočević, Bora Akıncıtürk, Mert Akbal, Saydan Akşit, Gaye Su Akyol, Okan Arabacıoğlu, Dünya Atay, Bora Başkan, Didem Çabukel, Burcu Dayanıklı, Esen Demirci, Ayça Elkap, Sevil Tunaboylu, Erkin Gören, Ece Kalabak, Yiğit Karagöz, Emre Özbay, Gamze Özer, Hayal Pozantı, Kaan Sezyum
Istanbul, Belgrade and Saarbrücken are so many kilometers away from each other and in very different places of Europe, with very different lives, but the work of the artists are not so far away from each other. The exhibition „Urban Bridges“ is a possibility for Saarbrücker to have a look to see the works of more then 20 young artists from Serbia and Turkey.
Most of the artists from Istanbul participated on May 2009 in the exhibition „Local Illustrators 1“ in Galery Mtaär, an independent producer galery, which is initiated by Erkin Gören and Sevil Tunaboylu. It is one of the newest locations for contemporary art on anatolian side of Bosphorus in Istanbul.
Urban Bridges
28.09.2009 – 10.10.2009
Ausstellung von Istanbuler, Belgrader und Saarbrücker Künstlern
Vernisage: 28. september 19:00
Comments Off
SERGİ / EXHIBITION
Urban Bridges
An Exhibition in Galery Nauwieser 19
28.9.- 4.10 2009
Curators: Mtaär – Mert Akbal – Dragana Pesic
Artists : Brankica Končarević, Slavica Lazić Dundas, Nevena Popović, Milena Putnik, Maja Rakočević, Bora Akıncıtürk, Mert Akbal, Saydan Akşit, Gaye Su Akyol, Okan Arabacıoğlu, Dünya Atay, Bora Başkan, Didem Çabukel, Burcu Dayanıklı, Esen Demirci, Ayça Elkap, Sevil Tunaboylu, Erkin Gören, Ece Kalabak, Yiğit Karagöz, Emre Özbay, Gamze Özer, Hayal Pozantı, Kaan Sezyum
Istanbul, Belgrade and Saarbrücken are so many kilometers away from each other and in very different places of Europe, with very different lives, but the work of the artists are not so far away from each other. The exhibition „Urban Bridges“ is a possibility for Saarbrücker to have a look to see the works of more then 20 young artists from Serbia and Turkey.
Most of the artists from Istanbul participated on May 2009 in the exhibition „Local Illustrators 1“ in Galery Mtaär, an independent producer galery, which is initiated by Erkin Gören and Sevil Tunaboylu. It is one of the newest locations for contemporary art on anatolian side of Bosphorus in Istanbul.
Urban Bridges
28.09.2009 – 10.10.2009
Ausstellung von Istanbuler, Belgrader und Saarbrücker Künstlern
Vernisage: 28. september 19:00
Comments Off
stanbul, Traversee
Istanbul, Traversee14 mars – 12 juil. 2009 Lille. Palais des beaux-arts …
Comments Off
stanbul, Traversee
Istanbul, Traversee14 mars – 12 juil. 2009 Lille. Palais des beaux-arts …
Comments Off
THE 2009 ATTITUDE FESTIVAL
___________________________________________
THE 2009 ATTITUDE FESTIVAL
26 – 30 JUNE 2009 BITOLA MACEDONIA
CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY PUBLIC ARTS BITOLA MACEDONIA
http://ccpaelementi.blogspot.com
This is the 5th time that we are organising The Attitude Festival in the city of Bitola. Each year there were numerous artists participating, from all over the Europe and World.
The selected video art and experimental film will be shown in public spaces this year, in front of the banks within the city, as a reaction to financial crises and globalization of the financial market:
“The capital does not create the poorness but invents it. This system which is threatened not only by the energy crises but much more by the individual crises, encouraged and leaded from the connection of material luxury , mental disaster and abuse of the necessity to propagandize the importance of the economy, portrays that the society is being directed towards the discourse of general catastrophe. In this stadium of social reality in which the hyper-reality is becoming the reality, the manipulation of truth is imposing as absolute focus. This focus on the problem which leads us to the problem resisting of capitalistic domination, at the same time gives us the possibility to fight against it, not accepting it as a moral but also not as an unmoral , but above all creating a net of signs which would direct towards displacing the gravitation of the reality and that would comes up into the loss of the power concentrated in the governance. But if this kind of disarranging the historical myth would release us from the ominous and false function of the things which are leading us to the loss of real essence? Where the new seduction begins – through power of the money or through the power of the artwork?”
The Attitude Festival has collaborated with numerous cultural organizations (Art Expo Italy, Prima Centre Berlin/Skopje, The One Minutes Foundation Amsterdam, EAF Adelaide, Remont Belgrade, SKUC Galerija Ljubljana, Museum of Contemporary Art Skopje Macedonia, Franz West Studio Wien, Visura Aperta Zagreb and others).
Open Space at The Attitude Festival
Project curator: Gülsen Bal
Participant artist:
Peter Mörtenböck and Helge Mooshammer
Alban Muja
Şener Özmen & Cengiz Tekin
Comments Off
Urban Interventions: Artistic Perspectives (UIAP)
Residency Program
UIAP is a one-off project to be realized in 2009 for enabling visual artists from Turkey to attend a residency program in Linz, Austria, from July to September, 2009, and again from October to December, 2009. The program will be reciprocated in 2010 in Istanbul.
Goal:
The project “Urban Interventions” aims at inviting artists from Europe to explore various urban landscapes in different cities. It creates, within the framework of artist residency programs and activities, a platform for interaction and exchange both on a local level, as well as within a broader, inter-regional spectrum.
The project will include artists from 5 countries from Europe (Liverpool-UK, Dortmund-GE, Tallinn-EE, Istanbul-TR, And Linz-AT), developing urban art projects within the span of 3 to 6 month residencies at one of the project partner cities.
Who Can Apply:
Urban Interventions Artistic Perspectives (UIAP) grants are intended for visual artists. However, artists who are part of a collective or a multi-disciplinary team are also welcome to apply to the UIAP. In addition to work-related criteria, there are a number of conditions applicants must satisfy in order to qualify for a grant. All applicants must be resident in Turkey, and if they are not nationals of Turkey, they must have a valid residence permit. For precise details of the conditions, applicants are referred to the explanation accompanying the application form.
If you require more information please contact oykuozsoy@gmail.com / OykuOzs@garanti.com.tr.
Host Institutions for artists from Turkey:
Cultural Dept of Linz, Austria
Dates:
1 artist July-Sept 2009
1 artist Oct-Dec 2009
Selection Process:
UIAP Applications will be reviewed by a committee of five professionals, including but not limited to curators, who have experience in international residencies. There will be one representative from Platform Garanti.
Selection Criteria:
Artists who have a demonstrable interest in public spaces, urban initiatives and interventions, as well as mobilization of artistic practices and exchanges.
Detailed information about the institution:
Atelierhaus Salzamt (International Studio House Linz)
The former Salt Authority in Linz’s city has been converted into an international meeting place for artists by the Cultural Department of Linz, Austria.
Atelierhaus Salzamt is a brand new renovated 300 year old building beside the Danube. The ground floor has a 200 sqm exhibition room and a cafe/bistro.
Accommodation (around 30qm) and studio (30-70qm) is in Atelierhaus Salzamt, is free of charge for the artists-in-residence. There is also a recreation room with an extra kitchen, a small library. Internet is provided.
Selected artists will receive a stipend for living expenses Euro 800 per month and Euro 1,000 for material subsidy once.
Institutions of Interest in Linz:
Ars electronica
afo architectureforum oberosterreich
The application must include a statement/motivation letter for the residency. Please forward the application form and your CV, along with sufficient visual material such as slides, Cds/DVDs, web addresses, images and/or printed material of work no older than four years. The material will not be returned, please do not send in any original work.
All visual documentation must be accompanied by a specific information sheet on the visuals that lists the medium, date, and other necessary details.
It is important that you choose a documentation medium with which your work can be assessed best.
Please take into account that the committee may not view a video for longer than 15 minutes. If necessary, please provide an explanation no longer than a single A4 sheet.
Your materials must be delivered to Platform Garanti by June 2, 2009
Important Note:
If you have already applied for the:
Accented Residency, or the Can Xalant Residency programs, you do not have to send your file again.
Please send only a letter of intent specific to the application.
The application can be found here
Comments Off
Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin: Global Mockery
Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin: Global Mockery
[Küresel Güldürü]
maison Folie de Wazemmes, Lille, Fransa
30 Nisan – 7 Temmuz, 2009
Platform Garanti Güncel Sanat Merkezi, Europe XXL Lille 3000 kapsamında, Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin’in vefatının ardından gerçekleşecek olan ilk kapsamlı sergiyi düzenledi.
Europe XXL Lille 3000 Lille Bienali: 20 yıl önce Berlin duvarının yıkılmasıyla yeniden tanımlanan Yeni Avrupa’yı bienal kapsamında keşfetmeye çalışıyor. “Europe XXL: East is the new West is the new East…” başlığı altında Berlin, Budapeşte, Varşova, Zagrep, Moskova gibi kentlerin yanında İstanbul da var. Bu çerçevede Platform Garanti, Hüseyin Alptekin; Garanti Galeri ise, “Mapping Istanbul” projesi ile bienalde yer almaktalar. Bienal 14 Mart – 12 Temmuz tarihleri arasında gerçekleşiyor.
maison Folie de Wazemmes’in iki katında gerçekleştirilen “Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin: Global Mockery sanatçının Heterotopya, Winter Depression, Karakum gibi enstelasyonları ve 2007 Venedik Bienali, Türkiye Pavyonu’nunda yer alan, fotografik sekansların ardarda getirilmesinden oluşan Incident-s gibi videoları izlenmekte.
Sergideki işler, Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin’in araştırmalarının ana kanallarına değinmekte. Örneğin, 1989 yılında Berlin Duvarı’nın çöküşü ve Sovyetler Birliği’nin dağılmasının ardından tasarımcısı anonim, hiyerarşilere rağbet etmeyen, serbestçe dolaşan imge ve nesnelerin birbirlerine dokunmalarını, yan yana durmalarını, üst üste gelmelerini irdeleyen Heterotopya aynı zamanda sanat eserinin ontolojik bir nesne olduğunu göstermekte. Winter Depression enstelasyonu ise depresyonun bir zaman kipi olduğu kadar, mekanın ortasında duran divanla bir yer kipi de olabileceğini hatırlatıyor. Karakum enstelasyonu “değerli” olanla “kayda değer bulunmayan” kültürel imgeler arasındaki karşılıklı geçişlere işaret etmekte. Devasa bir ucuz plastik torba olan Karakum Camel sigarasının paketinin üzerindeki imgenin apartılıp yerelleştirilmesinden oluşmuş. Üzerinde “Disposed in Middle Asia” [Orta Asya'ya yayılmış] yazan torbanın geldiği “özgün” sigara paketi de egzotik ve klişe bir Orta Doğu imgesinden apartılmaktaydı. İmgenin göçebeliği, bunun gibi sıradan, “taklit” torbaların kullanıcılarının da yerlerinden edilmişler olduğunu hatırlatmakta.
Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin’in arşivi ve kütüphanesini bünyesinde barındıran Platform Garanti Güncel Sanat Merkezi aynı zamanda sanatçının hayatı ve eserleri üzerine detaylı bir araştırma yürütmektedir.
Comments Off
Accented
Accented aims to develop co-operations in South East Europe (SEE), and the East Mediterranean (EM), North Africa, the Gulf Countries and the United Kingdom with key institutions that focus on artistic research.
The initiative will be administered through a relationship between six institutions that include Platform Garanti CAC (Istanbul, Turkey), Vector Association (Iasi, Romania), Ashkal Alwan (Beirut, Lebanon), Townhouse Gallery (Cairo, Egypt), Delfina Foundation (London, UK) and Spike Island (Bristol, UK).
Creative Collaboration grants will be made available to artists, curators and writers from countries in SEE, EM, the Gulf and the UK. Over a course of two years 20 professionals selected will be offered six to eight-week residencies at one of the participating institutions.
The initiative is open to applicants from the following countries: Albania, Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Egypt, Greece, Gulf Region, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kosovo, Lebanon, Libya, Macedonia, Morocco, Palestine, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, Syria, Tunisia, Cyprus, Turkey and the United Kingdom.
Accented is generously supported by the British Council under the Creative Collaboration Project Funds.
Detailed information can be found here
Download the application form from here
For further information please contact:
Oyku Ozsoy: oykuozs@garanti.com.tr
Comments Off
ENG / SPACES BETWEEN SPACES by ADNAN YILDIZ (RES, april 09)
SPACES BETWEEN SPACESBy ADNAN YILDIZ In Spielberg’s movie, “Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”, there is a short conversation between the spooky character of the story, Oxley (John Hurt), and Indy Jones (Harrison Fo…
Comments Off
Adrian Paci Konuşması
4 Nisan Cumartesi, 14.00
Garanti Galeri ve Platform Garanti Güncel Sanat Merkezi / 5. Kat
Garanti Han 115A, İstiklal Caddesi
Adrian Paci, kişisel deneyimlerini yeniden yaratırken, belgesel nitelikli düz bir sunumdan ziyade geleneksel hikaye anlatım yöntemlerini kullanıyor. Kendi düğününde çekilen video görüntülerini tabloya dönüştürebiliyor (Düğün / The Wedding, 2003), ailesinin Arnavutluk’tan İtalya’ya göç hikayesini kızının anlatımıyla masalsı bir ifadeyle kayda geçirebiliyor (Arnavut Masalları / Albanian Stories, 1997).
Adrian Paci, WHW’nin düzenlediği Yamuk Bakmak / Looking Awry (apexart, 2003); Balkanların Geçitlerinde / In the Gorges of the Balkans (Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, 2003); New Video, New Europe, (Tate Modern, London, 2004); Biennial of Sevilla, (2004) gibi birçok sergiye katıldı. Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; PS1/Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum Am Ostwall, Dortmund’da kişisel sergiler açtı.
4 Nisan’dan itibaren Outlet//İhraç Fazlası Sanat Galerisi‘nde gerçekleştirilecek “Kişilik Krizi” adlı sergide, sanatçının 2007 tarihli Centro di Permanenza Temporanea adlı fotoğraf ve video işi izlenebilir. Sergide, savaş, yoksulluk ve eşitsizliğin tetiklediği koşullarda göç, sürgün ve bekleyiş döngüsünü düşündüren Centro di Permanenza Temporanea, aprondaki bir dizi insanın uçağa binmek üzere merdivenlerden çıkmaları ve aslında var olmayan bir uçağı beklemeleri konu alınıyor. Uzaktan, uçakların iniş ve kalış sesleri duyulmakta ancak bekleyenlerin durumunda bir değişiklik olmamaktadır. Yapıtın adı, İtalya’daki kaçak göçmenlerin bekletildiği kamplara gönderme yapıyor.
1969’da Arnavutluk’ta doğan Adrian Paci, Arnavutluk Sanat Akademisi’nde öğrenim gördükten sonra 1990’ların ortasında ailesiyle İtalya’ya göç etmek zorunda kaldı. Doğduğu topraklarla bağını sürdüren sanatçı, göç, yoksulluk ve köksüzlük deneyimlerinden yola çıkarak bir dizi son derece güçlü eser üretiyor.
Konuşma, İngilizce yapılacak.
Comments Off
Book Preview / Kitap Sunumu
Jeremiah Day / Simone Forti
28 Mart Cumartesi, 17:30
Garanti Galeri – Platform Garanti
Istiklal Cad. no:115A, Beyoglu/Ist., 5. Kat
Geçtiğimiz sene Project Arts Center’da (Dublin, İrlanda) düzenlenen bir grup sergisinden yola çıkarak oluşmaya başlayan bu kitap, farklı dönemlerden gelen ve farklı malzemeleri kullanan; fakat aynı konuyu ve duyarlılığı paylaşan iki sanatçının çalışmalarını belgeliyor. Simone Forti’nin gazetelerdeki günlük haberleri kullandığı doğaçlama performanslarına ve Jeremiah Day’in fotoğraf/alan araştırmalarına odaklanan kitap, hem bir katalog hem de bir sanatçı kitabı niteliğinde. Sanatçı Can Altay ile işbirliğiyle hazırlanan bu kitap, Day’in İstanbul’da üzerinde çalıştığı ana proje niteliğinde.
UCLA’dan (California, ABD) mezun olduktan ve hem sanatla ilgili hem de sanat dışında Los Angeles’da çalıştıktan sonra Day, 2003 yılında Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten’e (Amsterdam, Hollanda) katılmak için Avrupa’ya taşındı. Day’in slide gösterileri, yayınları ve enstelasyonları; fotoğraf, performans ve araştırmanın bir araya getirilmesi ile oluşuyor. Jeremiah Day, işleri 1960′larda Judson Kilisesi’ndeki postmodern danstan, hareket halinde konuşan doğaçlamaların evrimine, ve yazarlığa kadar uzanan Simone Forti’den etkilenmiştir.
Jeremiah Day, Kasım 2008′den beri FONDS BKVB (Hollanda) desteğiyle İstanbul Misafirleri Programı kapsamında Platform Garanti’de misafir sanatçı olarak yer almaktadır.
****
Jeremiah Day
Jeremiah Day / Simone Forti
Saturday, March 28 at 5:30 p.m.
Garanti Galeri – Platform Garanti
Istiklal Str. no:115A, Beyoglu/Ist.; 5th Floor
Developed from last year’s collaborative exhibition at Project Arts Centre (Dublin, Ireland), this book documents the practice of two artists of different generations and mediums, but with shared subject matter and sensibility. Focussed on Simone Forti’s improvisational performances working with stories from the daily news, and Jeremiah Day’s photo/site investigations, the book is part catalogue, part artist’s book. In addition to working collaboratively with Can Altay, this book has been Day’s major project while here in Istanbul.
After graduating from UCLA and working in Los Angeles both in and out of the art context, in 2003 Jeremiah Day moved to Europe to attend Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten. Day’s slide-shows, publications and installations combine photography, performance and research, and are critically informed by his experience working with an artist of an earlier generation, Simone Forti, whose practice has spanned from the origins of post-modern dance at Judson Church in the early 1960′s, to the evolution of her moving-speaking improvisations, and increasingly as a writer.
Jeremiah Day, current resident at Platform Garanti supported by FONDS BKVB (The Netherlands) since November 2008.
Comments Off
2007 WC, Hafriyat Karaköy
2007 ‘Allah Korkusu’, ‘ Fear of God’, Hafriyat Karaköy WC-III, Istanbul
2007 ‘Dünyayı Yesen Doymazsın’, ‘Your eyes are bigger than your stomach’ , “Derdim Dünya”, “This world annoys me”, Hafriyat Karaköy WC-II, Istanbul
10. İstanbul Bienali kapsamında, Hafriyat mekanında gerçekleştirilen ‘Dünyayı yesen doymazsın’ adlı sergi kapsamında Tuvalet müdahalesine devam edilmiştir. Tüketimin son noktası olan kara deliğe işaret edilmiştir.
The toilet installation took place in Hafriyat Karaköy, in 10th Istanbul Biennial, in an exhibition called “Your eyes are bigger than your stomach”. With this installation, The last stop of consumption has been pointed out.
2007 ‘Müdahale’, ‘İntervention’, Hafriyat Karaköy WC-I, Istanbul
In our political and physical geography, street interventions can only be realized in secluded places and with illicit touches. In Turkey using the public area has a different meaning than what it is in Europe. Since Turkey has been through three Coup d’Etat in only the second half of the 20th century, writing on walls has always been considered as a political guerilla manifesto that had to be immediately punished by the police. Thus these actions has to be done silently. An individual usually declares his or her identity by marking on toilet walls, school desks, ATMs, telephone booths etc… In a way, this action says ‘I am here’ and ‘I have something to say’. Particularly in our geography it depicts bashful attitude. Toilets, in particular are center stage for these acts. Those places used as communication ports between people. They are only temporarily occupied by someone. Atıl kunst contributes on this socially accepted alternative communication areas with its own words. It aims at drawing attention to repressed ideas and feelings. By adding new comments on toilet walls, Atıl Kunst opens new discussions.Atıl kunst made series of installations inside toilets. The first one is 2007 inside Hafriyat, ‘İntervention’ exhibition. Typical toilet phrases are written with permanent pens. As today toilet rooms are covered with ceramic tiles it is no longer possible to write with regular pen and pencil. New plastic doors can’t be scratched anymore. Yet, new construction materials give way to alternative touches. In this specific installation, despite of the harsh content of the words, the toilet itself looks quite elegant and stylish.
Bulunduğumuz coğrafyada sokaklara müdahale etme şekli çoğunlukla dar alanlarda kaçak dokunuşlarla gerçekleşir. Kişi kendi varlığını tuvalet , okul sırası, bank, telefon kabini vs gibi yerlerde yazarak yada kazıyarak ispata girişir. Bir anlamda ‘Ben buradayım’ ve ‘Bir sözüm var’ anlamına gelen bu eylem, yine bu coğrafyaya özgü olarak çekingen bir tavır sergiler. Özellikle tuvaletler bu çekingen tavrın biriktiği, birbiri ile iletişime geçtiği, geçici olarak sahiplenilmiş mekanlardır. Toplumumuzdaki ifade güçlüğünün yan etkisi ile kişinin ancak tuvalet kapılarının ardında, gözetlenmediğinden emin olduğunda, riske girmeden bir şeyler söyleyebildiği bu alandaki yazılı sözlere atılkunst da kendi sözünü eklemler. Tuvaletlere müdahale bastırılmış söze işaret etmeyi içerir. Bu sözlerin üstüne atılkunst kendi sözünü söyler.
Atılkunst’un ilk Tuvalet enstelasyonu, 2007 Haziran ayında Hafriyat’ta yapılmış olan ‘Müdahale’ adlı sergi kapsamında gerçekleştirilmiştir. Tipik tuvalet cümleleri seçilerek , çoğu kalıcı kalemle yazılmıştır. Artık tuvaletlerin çoğu seramik kaplıdır. Eskisi gibi kurşun ya da tükenmez kalem kullanma şansınız yoktur. Kapılar da kazınamaz, çoğu plastik doğramadır. Bu yapı malzemeleri alternatiflerini doğurur. Müdahale enstelasyonunda, müdahale, sert sözlere rağmen, gerçekte zarif ve çekingendir. Yapılmak istenen de budur.
Comments Off
13.03.09 Bettina Lockemann
Please scroll down for the English text
Bettina Lockemann
Ülkeleri Keşfetmek / Exploring Territories
Sanatçı Konuşması / Artist Talk
13.03.09 Cuma / Friday
18:30 / 6.30 pm
http://www.archivalien.de/
PiST///
Dolapdere Caddesi
Pangaltı Dere Sokak
No 8 A/B/C
Pangaltı 34375
İstanbul TR
pist@pist.org.tr
Kavramsal-belgesel fotoğraf işleri üreten Alman sanatçı Bettina Lockemann Kunststifung NRW (Northrine-Westphalia Sanat Vakfı) tarafindan desteklenen son projesini gerçekleştirmek için bugünlerde Türkiye’de çalışıyor. Bu çalışmasını İstanbul’un kentsel yapılanması, Avrupa ile Asya arasında konumlandığı coğrafi sınır ve Türkiye’nin geleceğini bir Avrupa ülkesi olarak şekillendiren Atatürk’un Ankara’yı başkent olarak seçmesi üzerine oluşturuyor. Lockemann Avrupa’nın yanı başında yer alan Türkiye’yi ne tam Avrupalı ne de tam zıttı olarak gören anlayışın bağlantı ve ayrılıklarını oluşturan bir söylemi bir araya toparlamayı amaçlıyor. Bunu gerçekleştirirken bireylerin Avrupalı kimliğine de sorular yöneltiyor.
Lockemann 13 Mart 2009 Cuma günü saat 18:30′da PiST’te hem Türkiye’de gerçekleştirmekte olduğu son projesi üzerine hem de 2006-2008 süresince Japonya’daki Avrupa etkisi ve Brüksel’deki Avrupa Parlementosu içerisinde gerçekleştirdiği iki yeni projesi üzerine de konuşacak. 13 Mart Cuma günü sizi de PiST’e bekliyoruz!
——————————————————————-
German artist Bettina Lockemann is working in the field of conceptual documentary photography. Currently she is working on a project in Turkey funded by the Kunststiftung NRW (Art Foundation Northrhine-Westphalia). Her work in Turkey is conceived in the urban settings of Istanbul, situated at the geographical border between Europe and Asia and Ankara, being the capital chosen by Atatürk who was working on Turkey’s future as a European country. Lockemann is searching for threads of connection and disjunction within the discourse of Turkey being situated at the European frontier neither being fully European nor the contrary Other, therefore also posing questions towards European identities themselves. In her latest works she is exploring cultural and institutional territories in search of Europe and its Other.
On March 13th, 2009 Lockemann will give an artist talk on not only about her recent project in Turkey but also about two other projects she has realized in 2006-2008 one about the European influences in Japan and the other on her approach to the interior of the European Parliament in Brussels. We look forward to see you at PiST on March 13th!
Comments Off
Neighbours in Dialogue: Istanbul Collection for Ars Aevi
Exhibition /// PRESS RELEASENeighbours in DialogueIstanbul Collection for Ars AeviARTISTIC DIRECTOR: Beral Madra (Istanbul)ARTISTS: Steve Sabella (Jerusalem); Wafaa Yasin (Galilee); Sanan Aleskerov (Baku); Lamia Joreige (Beirut); Vahram Aghasyan (Ereva…
Comments Off
The National
Bridge over troubled water
Last Updated: October 02. 2008 2:57PM UAE / October 2. 2008 10:57AM GMT
Detail from Cindy Sherman’s Untitled FIlm Still #17, currently on display at Istanbul Modern’s Held Together With Water. Courtesy Cindy Sherman / Metro Pictures
As Istanbul Modern prepares to turn four, a new show finds it coming into its own. Kaelen Wilson-Goldie reports.
A city of 15 million people splayed over the joint between Europe and Asia, Istanbul boasts a thriving art scene replete with commercial galleries, public institutions, private museums, studios, residency programs, project spaces and a handful of serious art stars such as Kutlug Ataman and Haluk Akakçe. The international art world has deigned to recognise the city since 1987, when the Istanbul Biennial was born. Nonetheless and however absurd, Istanbul is still regarded as peripheral to the art world’s centres in Europe and North America. Among artists and curators, anxieties over occidental versus oriental influence persist. The exhibition Held Together with Water, on view at the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art until January 11, features two videos that confront these anxieties head on.
The first piece is Nil Yalter’s 1974 video La Femme sans tete ou la danse du Ventre (The Headless Woman or the Belly Dance). A groundbreaking work by a Turkish artist who was born in Cairo and has been based in Paris since the 1960s (a columnist for Turkey’s Today’s Zaman newspaper recently likened her art to a national treasure fit for the official archives), the piece frames the artist’s bare midriff as she uses a felt-tip pen to write passages from a text on eroticism in winding circles around her navel. When her skin is all but covered in ink, she begins to dance, oriental style, cleverly collapsing a set of competing clichés about the drive for women’s sexual liberation (in the West) and the desire for old-school exotic seduction (in the East).
The second piece is Sener Özmen and Cengiz Tekin’s uproarious 2004 video The Meeting or Bonjour Monsieur Courbet. Deliciously irreverent, the work presents three men who meet in a wasted rural landscape, insult one another and, in a final crescendo, exchange blows over ludicrous claims about realism, revolutionaries and the bourgeoisie. While Yalter’s piece skewers the feminine mystique, Özmen and Tekin’s playfully ridicules masculinity. Yet both works strike an important chord that situates the exhibition in a specific place and time.
Detail from Francesca Woodman’s Untitled (Providence, Rhode Island, 1975-1976/1997-2000). Courtesy George and Betty Woodman
Istanbul Modern, as the museum is widely known, turns four in December. It opened its doors to much fanfare in late 2004, when its inauguration was politically fast-tracked to coincide with the announcement that summit talks would soon take place on Turkey’s European Union membership bid. (Recip Tayyip Erdogan, the country’s prime minister, addressed the press amid the white walls of the newly minted museum.) Istanbul Modern is in many ways regarded today as a showcase for Turkey’s European ambitions, though it is notably not a state institution.
Many of Istanbul’s museums and art spaces are private initiatives backed by major banks – such as the Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center and the Yapi Kredi Kazim Taskent Sanat Galerisi. Others are financed by corporations, holding companies or the estates of business tycoons – such as the Pera Museum (funded by the Koç family) and the Sakip Sabanci Museum (which organised Picasso in Istanbul, a 2005 exhibition billed as the first of its kind for a western artist in Turkey, and is currently hosting a blockbuster show on Salvador Dalí).
Istanbul Modern is inextricably linked to the Eczacibasi family, industrialists and cultural philanthropists who in 1973 established the Istanbul Foundational for Culture and Arts. In addition to Istanbul Modern, the foundation oversees the Istanbul Biennial, several jazz, film and theatre festivals and a series of smaller, more intimate cultural events. The Eczacibasi family prised Istanbul Modern’s venue from the state – a boxy, 8,000 square metre space in a former customs warehouse that edges the bustling Bosporus. But it financed thebuilding’s $5 million (Dh18.3m) renovation alone.
Though Istanbul’s relationship to other cities in the Middle East is far from straightforward, the museum is an interesting case study for arts initiatives emerging elsewhere in the region. The current exhibition – which is bolstered by an enjoyable if fairly lightweight photography show (Human Conditions, featuring the Turkish artists Sitki Kösemen, Süreyya Yilmaz Dernek and Ergün Turan), a weightier video program (The City Rises, pairing the Turkish video artists Ali Kazma and Fikret Atay with vintage works by the Polish artist Zbig Rybczynski) and a film series dedicated to Tilda Swinton – is an opportunity to assess its achievements.
Held Together with Water features 116 works by 39 artists and retrieves much of its material from the vault that was 1970s feminism. There are examples of body art, performance art, video art and a slew of gender-bending experiments in which women photograph themselves as men and vice versa. There are rarely-shown works by well-known artists such as Cindy Sherman, Valie Export, Suzy Lake and Eleanor Antin alongside masterpieces by less-known artists such as Birgit Jürgenssen and Francesca Woodman.
Held Together with Water offers a glimpse of Cindy Sherman’s early efforts, such as the 16-milometer silent film Doll Clothes and several photographic series made before the artist’s landmark Untitled Film Stills. It sets feminist art in context rather than considering it in isolation. Named for a floor sculpture by Lawrence Weiner that is skillfully installed at the entrance to the show, Held Together with Water balances a certain intellectual austerity (Bernd and Hilla Becher, Gordon Matta-Clark, Fred Sandback) with a lightness of touch (a nine-channel video of Francis Alÿs tumbling over a stray dog in Mexico City) and subversive street cred (Nan Goldin’s gritty imagery, David Wojnarowicz’s Arthur Rimbaud in New York series).
The exhibition ponders the ways in which feminists, conceptualists and urban interventionists all broke with traditional methods of art-making such as painting and sculpting. It considers how these cracks and fractures extend from the 1970s to the present day. And it explores the critical turns that photography in particular has taken over nearly four decades.
Still, it is worth noting that Held Together with Water is as much a corporate merger as an artistic enterprise. All of the works in the show come from a collection that was established by Austria’s leading electricity company, Verbund, in 2004 (Philipp Kaiser of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and Marc-Olivier Wahler from Paris’ Palais de Tokyo sit on the Verbund collection’s board of advisors). Last year, Verbund entered into a joint venture with Turkey’s Sabanci Holding, and each company now holds a 50 per cent stake in EnerjiSA, which aims to acquire a ten per cent share in the Turkish electricity sector and hopes to be a player in a privatization process. So Held Together with Water, which represents the first public presentation of the Verbund collection outside of Austria, may be most cynically viewed as a signing bonus. This could be seen as cause for lamentation over the insidious intermingling of commerce and culture, but the collection is too strong for that. More generously, the exhibition might be a model for private sector involvement in the arts.
Levent Çalikoglu, Istanbul Modern’s chief curator, writes rather passionately in the exhibition catalogue about how Held Together with Water epitomises the museum’s mission, which is to promote Turkish modern art, introduce Turkey to contemporary international art and forge meaningful links between the two. Istanbul Modern’s previous exhibitions, eclectic to say the least, haven’t always been so effective. But it seems that the museum is somehow, somewhat, on the right track.
Recent changes in the creative and administrative staff, however, raise a few red flags. When Istanbul Modern first opened, Rosa Martinez was the museum’s chief curator. She organised 16 exhibitions in three years. A Spanish curator with considerable art world clout – she has organised countless high-profile biennials from Sao Paulo to Venice – Martinez has been heavily involved in Istanbul’s contemporary art scene since the late 1990s. In 2007, David Elliott, a British curator who held previous posts at Modern Art Oxford and the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo – joined her as Istanbul Modern’s new director. In interviews, he outlined a vision for the museum over a three-year tenure. But by the end of last year, both Martinez and Elliott were gone. Elliott reportedly resigned over a dispute with Oya Eczacibasi regarding the permanent collection (Oya Eczacibasi chairs Istanbul Modern’s board of directors, and a substantial portion of the museum’s permanent collection was donated, of course, by the Eczacibasi family). Now Elliott is on deck to curate the next Sydney Biennale. Istanbul Modern, meanwhile, has no director.
Last Updated: October 02. 2008 2:57PM UAE / October 2. 2008 10:57AM GMT
Detail from Cindy Sherman’s Untitled FIlm Still #17, currently on display at Istanbul Modern’s Held Together With Water. Courtesy Cindy Sherman / Metro Pictures
As Istanbul Modern prepares to turn four, a new show finds it coming into its own. Kaelen Wilson-Goldie reports.
A city of 15 million people splayed over the joint between Europe and Asia, Istanbul boasts a thriving art scene replete with commercial galleries, public institutions, private museums, studios, residency programs, project spaces and a handful of serious art stars such as Kutlug Ataman and Haluk Akakçe. The international art world has deigned to recognise the city since 1987, when the Istanbul Biennial was born. Nonetheless and however absurd, Istanbul is still regarded as peripheral to the art world’s centres in Europe and North America. Among artists and curators, anxieties over occidental versus oriental influence persist. The exhibition Held Together with Water, on view at the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art until January 11, features two videos that confront these anxieties head on.
The first piece is Nil Yalter’s 1974 video La Femme sans tete ou la danse du Ventre (The Headless Woman or the Belly Dance). A groundbreaking work by a Turkish artist who was born in Cairo and has been based in Paris since the 1960s (a columnist for Turkey’s Today’s Zaman newspaper recently likened her art to a national treasure fit for the official archives), the piece frames the artist’s bare midriff as she uses a felt-tip pen to write passages from a text on eroticism in winding circles around her navel. When her skin is all but covered in ink, she begins to dance, oriental style, cleverly collapsing a set of competing clichés about the drive for women’s sexual liberation (in the West) and the desire for old-school exotic seduction (in the East).
The second piece is Sener Özmen and Cengiz Tekin’s uproarious 2004 video The Meeting or Bonjour Monsieur Courbet. Deliciously irreverent, the work presents three men who meet in a wasted rural landscape, insult one another and, in a final crescendo, exchange blows over ludicrous claims about realism, revolutionaries and the bourgeoisie. While Yalter’s piece skewers the feminine mystique, Özmen and Tekin’s playfully ridicules masculinity. Yet both works strike an important chord that situates the exhibition in a specific place and time.
Detail from Francesca Woodman’s Untitled (Providence, Rhode Island, 1975-1976/1997-2000). Courtesy George and Betty Woodman
Istanbul Modern, as the museum is widely known, turns four in December. It opened its doors to much fanfare in late 2004, when its inauguration was politically fast-tracked to coincide with the announcement that summit talks would soon take place on Turkey’s European Union membership bid. (Recip Tayyip Erdogan, the country’s prime minister, addressed the press amid the white walls of the newly minted museum.) Istanbul Modern is in many ways regarded today as a showcase for Turkey’s European ambitions, though it is notably not a state institution.
Many of Istanbul’s museums and art spaces are private initiatives backed by major banks – such as the Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center and the Yapi Kredi Kazim Taskent Sanat Galerisi. Others are financed by corporations, holding companies or the estates of business tycoons – such as the Pera Museum (funded by the Koç family) and the Sakip Sabanci Museum (which organised Picasso in Istanbul, a 2005 exhibition billed as the first of its kind for a western artist in Turkey, and is currently hosting a blockbuster show on Salvador Dalí).
Istanbul Modern is inextricably linked to the Eczacibasi family, industrialists and cultural philanthropists who in 1973 established the Istanbul Foundational for Culture and Arts. In addition to Istanbul Modern, the foundation oversees the Istanbul Biennial, several jazz, film and theatre festivals and a series of smaller, more intimate cultural events. The Eczacibasi family prised Istanbul Modern’s venue from the state – a boxy, 8,000 square metre space in a former customs warehouse that edges the bustling Bosporus. But it financed thebuilding’s $5 million (Dh18.3m) renovation alone.
Though Istanbul’s relationship to other cities in the Middle East is far from straightforward, the museum is an interesting case study for arts initiatives emerging elsewhere in the region. The current exhibition – which is bolstered by an enjoyable if fairly lightweight photography show (Human Conditions, featuring the Turkish artists Sitki Kösemen, Süreyya Yilmaz Dernek and Ergün Turan), a weightier video program (The City Rises, pairing the Turkish video artists Ali Kazma and Fikret Atay with vintage works by the Polish artist Zbig Rybczynski) and a film series dedicated to Tilda Swinton – is an opportunity to assess its achievements.
Held Together with Water features 116 works by 39 artists and retrieves much of its material from the vault that was 1970s feminism. There are examples of body art, performance art, video art and a slew of gender-bending experiments in which women photograph themselves as men and vice versa. There are rarely-shown works by well-known artists such as Cindy Sherman, Valie Export, Suzy Lake and Eleanor Antin alongside masterpieces by less-known artists such as Birgit Jürgenssen and Francesca Woodman.
Held Together with Water offers a glimpse of Cindy Sherman’s early efforts, such as the 16-milometer silent film Doll Clothes and several photographic series made before the artist’s landmark Untitled Film Stills. It sets feminist art in context rather than considering it in isolation. Named for a floor sculpture by Lawrence Weiner that is skillfully installed at the entrance to the show, Held Together with Water balances a certain intellectual austerity (Bernd and Hilla Becher, Gordon Matta-Clark, Fred Sandback) with a lightness of touch (a nine-channel video of Francis Alÿs tumbling over a stray dog in Mexico City) and subversive street cred (Nan Goldin’s gritty imagery, David Wojnarowicz’s Arthur Rimbaud in New York series).
The exhibition ponders the ways in which feminists, conceptualists and urban interventionists all broke with traditional methods of art-making such as painting and sculpting. It considers how these cracks and fractures extend from the 1970s to the present day. And it explores the critical turns that photography in particular has taken over nearly four decades.
Still, it is worth noting that Held Together with Water is as much a corporate merger as an artistic enterprise. All of the works in the show come from a collection that was established by Austria’s leading electricity company, Verbund, in 2004 (Philipp Kaiser of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and Marc-Olivier Wahler from Paris’ Palais de Tokyo sit on the Verbund collection’s board of advisors). Last year, Verbund entered into a joint venture with Turkey’s Sabanci Holding, and each company now holds a 50 per cent stake in EnerjiSA, which aims to acquire a ten per cent share in the Turkish electricity sector and hopes to be a player in a privatization process. So Held Together with Water, which represents the first public presentation of the Verbund collection outside of Austria, may be most cynically viewed as a signing bonus. This could be seen as cause for lamentation over the insidious intermingling of commerce and culture, but the collection is too strong for that. More generously, the exhibition might be a model for private sector involvement in the arts.
Levent Çalikoglu, Istanbul Modern’s chief curator, writes rather passionately in the exhibition catalogue about how Held Together with Water epitomises the museum’s mission, which is to promote Turkish modern art, introduce Turkey to contemporary international art and forge meaningful links between the two. Istanbul Modern’s previous exhibitions, eclectic to say the least, haven’t always been so effective. But it seems that the museum is somehow, somewhat, on the right track.
Recent changes in the creative and administrative staff, however, raise a few red flags. When Istanbul Modern first opened, Rosa Martinez was the museum’s chief curator. She organised 16 exhibitions in three years. A Spanish curator with considerable art world clout – she has organised countless high-profile biennials from Sao Paulo to Venice – Martinez has been heavily involved in Istanbul’s contemporary art scene since the late 1990s. In 2007, David Elliott, a British curator who held previous posts at Modern Art Oxford and the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo – joined her as Istanbul Modern’s new director. In interviews, he outlined a vision for the museum over a three-year tenure. But by the end of last year, both Martinez and Elliott were gone. Elliott reportedly resigned over a dispute with Oya Eczacibasi regarding the permanent collection (Oya Eczacibasi chairs Istanbul Modern’s board of directors, and a substantial portion of the museum’s permanent collection was donated, of course, by the Eczacibasi family). Now Elliott is on deck to curate the next Sydney Biennale. Istanbul Modern, meanwhile, has no director.
Comments Off
Artist Talk / Sanatçı Konuşması: Babak Golkar 15.07.08
Pong Pong
© Babak Golkar, 2007
Artist Talk / Sanatçı Konuşması: Babak Golkar
15.07.08 Tuesday / Salı
at 7 pm / 19:00
PiST///
Babak Golkar Vancouver’da yaşayan bir sanatçı ve eğitmen. 2001′den beri Kanada, Avrupa ve Asya’da çeşitli sergilere katıldı. Golkar çizimden videoya, performanstan heykel ve mekana özel yerleştirmelere kadar farklı medyalar kullanıyor ancak tüm işlerinde sorguladığı konular ortak. Mizah ya da farklı sistem performansları gibi stratejiler kullanarak, konsepte uygun projelerinin merkezinde belirli politikalar, kültürel benzerlikler ve sanatın ekonomiyle ilişkisine yer veriyor. Golkar son dönem işleriyle ilgili olarak 15 Temmuz, Salı saat 19′da PiST’te bir konuşma* yapacak.
Golkar, yakınlarda Vancouver’daki Presentation House Gallery için Kuzey Vancouver’in Moodyville isimli bölgesine dair özel bir iş gerçekleştirdi. Bölgenin tarihi ve güncel konularını dikkate alarak, özellikle de orada yaşayan İranlılara odaklanan Golkar İranlı taksi şöförleri üzerine bir araştırma yapmaya karar verdi. Deriv(e) isimli bu işinde takside seyahat ederken etraftaki manzarayı ve şöförlerle gerçekleştirdiği sohbetleri saatlerce videoya çekti. Daha sonra bu konuşmalardan beş çizim gerçekleştirdi ve çizim için kullandığı malzemelerle Presentation House Gallery’nin dış cephesini değiştirerek bu binanın ve Moodyville’in tarihine göndermede bulundu.
*Konuşma İngilizce gerçekleşecektir.
Babak Golkar is a Vancouver based artist, and educator. He has been practicing and exhibiting in Canada, Europe and Asia since 2001. Golkar’s practice spreads across diverse medium, ranging from drawing, video, performance, sculpture and site-specific installations; however, issues surrounding his practice remain constant. While employing strategies such as humor and performance of difference systems, subjects of his concept-driven projects centre on specific politics, issues of cultural tropes and art in relation to its economy. Golkar will give a talk* on his recent works at PiST/// on Tuesday, July 15th at 7 pm.
Recently, Golkar was commissioned by the Presentation House Gallery in Vancouver to produce works in relation to a specific area of North Vancouver, called Moodyville. Considering the history of the place and the contemporary issues of the area, especially with the Iranian population living there, Golkar has decided to research Iranian taxi drivers. He shot hours of video of the landscape while taking taxis and recording the conversations with the drivers, titled Deriv(e). Then he produced five drawings from the conversations, and modified the façade of the building based on the materials used for the drawing, which in turn referred to the history of the building and Moodyville.
*The talk will be in English
Comments Off