Cornucopia Blog

With Contemporary Istanbul behind us, we are back in Karaköy/Tophane for an art walk of group and solo shows exploring diverse subjects and genres, with an emphasis on cinema, photography and realism.

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100 years of Turkish cinema

Let’s start at Istanbul Modern, which besides holding exhibitions we have covered elsewhere on this blog, is currently hosting an exhibition paying tribute to 100 years of Turkish cinema. One Hundred Years of Love, curated by Müge Turan and Gökhan Akçura, looks at the century-old love affair between Turkish cinema and its audiences. Film posters, paraphernalia, recreations of movie stars’ bedrooms, magazine covers and audiovisual displays all go to show how the preservation of the history of Turkish cinema is largely thanks to its fans' passion for memorabilia.

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Artists pick artists

On Mumhane Caddesi, the street parallel to the main drag Meclis-i Mebusan Caddesi, artSümer opens a group exhibition tomorrow. In Artists pick artists, the works of the gallery’s represented artists are displayed alongside pieces by artists whose work they follow, like or relate to. Please enquire directly with the gallery for prices.

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Jose Maria Mellado, ‘20’, Iceland, 2007

On the parallel narrow street, Hoca Tahsin Sokak, the gallery devoted entirely to photography, Elipsis (main image), is hosting its final show. Curated by the artist Nazım HR Dikbaş, The Thought that Counts displays works by Turkish and international photographers recently represented by the gallery.

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Karen Stuke, ‘Kobe, City Lights’, 2006

Elipsis say they are closing because it can no longer sustain itself as a commercial art gallery in the present climate. Its closure sheds light on the supposedly ‘booming’ Turkish art market, the interest shown by collectors in pioneering and experimental artists, and their support for galleries and spaces showing their work. Please enquire directly with Elipsis for prices.

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Kezban Arca Batıbeki, ‘A Room without a View 1’, 2014, mixed technique on wood panel, 106 x 171 cm

Nearby at Istanbul’74, the well-known artist Kezban Arca Batıbeki presents her latest work, exploring nostalgia. In A Room without a View Batıbeki’s detailed object paintings and photo engravings are kitsch recreations inspired by her own personal memories, recollections and cinema. Please enquire directly with the gallery for prices.

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Köken Ergun, ‘Ashura’, 2012

Navigate back onto Kemeraltı Caddesi (where the tram stops) and head west. When you come to the hustle and bustle of Karaköy Square, take a steep right onto Bankalar Caddesi. At No 11, the former headquarters of the Ottoman Bank which now houses SALT Galata, a new exhibition – part of the celebrations of 600 years of diplomatic relations between Poland and Turkey – explores contemporary art from a post-secular perspective, with a core group of works from the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw.

There are many wonderful works in Rainbow in the Dark. Paweł Althamer’s ‘Draftmen’s Congress’, a performative work displayed until this Sunday (November 23) is a standout, as well as Köken Ergun’s ‘Ashura’ (above), a video documenting the preparations for the ceremony commemorating the Day of Ashura (acknowledged by Shi’a Muslims as a day of mourning for the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of Muhammad at the Battle of Karbala on 10 Muharram in the year 61 AH).

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Mirosław Bałka, ‘Black Pope, Black Sheep’

Another important work is Mirosław Bałka’s ‘Black Pope, Black Sheep’ (above), one of the artist’s early pieces from the tumultuous turn of the 1980s, a period when new forms of representation emerged in Polish art as a response to the challenges of the political transition (shortly before the eruption of so-called ‘critical art’).

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Berkay Buğdanoğlu, ‘Tiamat’, 2014, 125 x 222 cm

Make your way back out onto Kemeraltı Caddesi and head towards the Tophane tram stop. Just after you pass it, take a left at Boğazkesen Caddesi, the steep street leading to İstiklâl Caddesi. At No 45, Mixer is hosting the third solo show of the young artist Berkay Buğdanoğlu, fresh from displaying his works at Contemporary Istanbul.

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Berkay Buğdanoğlu, exhibition view

Chaoskampf showcases Buğdanoğlu’s impressive textured steel works, exploring the eternal conflict between chaos and order. In these gritty and dark pieces the artist uses mythological figures and scenes to elicit differing emotions in his audience. For this show he also experimented with different materials and presents new aluminium and print works. Prices range from TL1,000 to TL25,000.

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Candan Öztürk, a work depicting characters from ‘The Great Gatsby’

Across the road at No 76, Daire is hosting the first solo show of the Ankara-born artist Candan Öztürk, who also creates textured works questioning the complexities of power and its meaning in modern society.

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Candan Öztürk, ‘Anxiety’

For Power and Oblivion the artist recreated scenes from period TV shows and films using a unique technique of layering semi-transparent colours of folio stickers to achieve a blurred image. The layers and the transparent naïve structures of the folios represent the ever-changing identities and fragile psychologies of his characters. Prices range from TL2,750 to TL9,500.

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Key: Orange – Istanbul Modern, Red – artSümer, Blue – Elipsis, Yellow – Istanbul’74, Purple – SALT Galata, Green – Mixer, Brown – Daire

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In February 1862, the Photographic News in London excitedly told its readers that the photographer Francis Bedford had been commissioned to accompany the young Prince of Wales on a four-month tour of the Ottoman Middle East and Greece.

It illustrated ‘that the heir to England’s throne takes as deep an interest in photography as his late royal father did. In the Eastern tour, which he is about to take in as private a manner as possible, accompanied by a very limited suite, eight gentlemen only. Mr Francis Bedford, photographer, forms one of that eight.’

Just over 150 years later, the cream of Bedford’s photographs is on show at The Queen’s Gallery, at Buckingham Palace, in the exhibition Cairo to Constantinople. For experts, it is the quality of the images that is striking: typically, for the Royal Collection, they have been preserved in pristine condition, since Bedford presented the albumen prints to his royal patrons.

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Tower of Galata and part of the Turkish burial ground, May 21, 1862

For Istanbullus, one standout picture would surely be the one of Galata Tower, seen in 1862 standing well clear of any neighbouring buildings, amid tumble-down grave markers in a cemetery, and Cyprus trees. The tower has its step balustrades rather than a conical roof.

Prince Albert Edward set off just two months after the death of his father, Prince Albert, who had helped plan the trip. After a brief delay, Queen Victoria was determined it should go ahead.

At 20 years old he was to visit the greatest sites of Egypt and the Holy Land. The trip was intended to increase his understanding of what was already seen as an enfeebled empire ripe for plucking, and of the need to secure the route to India.

Leisure travel to the region was increasing on the heels of major archaeological discoveries and steamships began plying the route to Alexandria in 1840. By 1867, the British travel company Thomas Cook & Son was running package tours to Egypt and the Holy Land.

If the Prince was travelling light – in the Holy Land, the party used horses and tents – the 46-year-old Francis Bedford was not. Barely 20 years after the arrival of photography, he was probably the first ‘snapper’ to join any royal tour, but he did not carry an iPhone. On the Royal Yacht Osborne, he brought tripods, a portable darkroom, photographic plates and all his chemical supplies. Bedford would make 192 negatives during the tour, on typically 10 to 12 second exposures of the 10x12 inch plates.

Prince Albert Edward apparently took photography seriously as an art form; his mother, Queen Victoria, saw it as a trade. In Bedford’s images from Egypt, Palestine and the Holy Land, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Greece, which he clearly admired, it is the glimpses of human and animal visitors that give life and scale to vast stony monuments. A sheep, in the great gateway of the Temple of Horus on the Nile, or a tiny dark figure facing the Sphinx, with a tethered camel. The Dome of the Rock appears, looking surprisingly shabby, lacking the glittering gold on its dome.

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A portrait at Karnak, March 16, 1862

The often placid calm of Bedford’s pictures of the great historical sites contrasts with a region on the road to tumultuous upheaval. The journalist John McCarthy, held hostage for five years in Lebanon from 1986–91, notes in his introduction to the accompanying book that in 1862, the region was ‘rumbling with revolt and rivalry on local and international levels’. A rare figurative picture is the wonderful portrait of an unknown man at Karnak.

In the Holy Land, the Ottoman authorities gave permission to enter the two most sacred Islamic sites, the Haram al-Sharif, the site of the Dome of the Rock; and the Mosque of al-Khalil outside Jerusalem, which had not been seen by a European in 600 years. Bedford took his pictures with 50 Turkish soldiers standing guard.

The exhibition is ably curated by Sophie Gordon. In the book accompanying it, she notes how the Queen and Prince Albert probably first saw Bedford’s work when they visited the Photographic Society’s exhibition in June 1854. An artist and accomplished lithographer, he had become an amateur photographer the year before. In 1857, he was asked by Queen Victoria to visit Coburg, Germany to photograph places associated with Prince Albert’s childhood, for an album to be presented as a birthday gift.

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Nusretiye Mosque, Istanbul, May 21, 1862

Another curiosity for Istanbullus is the photograph of the Nusretiye Mosque in Tophane. There are not only neat stacks of cannonballs from the armoury, so to speak, but in addition to the two remaining minarets stands a tower with what resembles a giant knitting needle rising out of it.

While Bedford seems to have struggled to get a strong angle on the Haghia Sophia (main image), and was not allowed to photograph inside Topkapı, other images include a panorama of Istanbul from the Beyazit Tower. He would have been familiar with the work, from Constantinople, of James Robertson and, from Egypt, of Francis Frith.

European interest in the Ottoman east was growing. A decade earlier, France and Britain had sided with the Ottomans against Russia in the Crimean War, but they were waiting to take advantage of the empire’s weakness. Two decades later in 1882, Britain would occupy Egypt. In the 1850s, John Murray had published the first British guidebooks to Egypt and the Holy Land. The interest in Bedford’s photographs of the Holy Land fed enthusiasm for the region and in 1865 the Palestine Exploration Fund was launched to investigate the regions archaeology, geography and culture; in 1917 British forces entered Jerusalem.

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Glass jar or grenade thought used for Greek fire

The show includes artefacts, including the badge sash and star of the order of Osmanieh given to the Prince by Ali Pasha in the name of the Sultan. There is also a striking grenade-shaped 12th-century green glass jar said to have been used for Greek fire.

It was 40 years before Prince Albert Edward inherited the throne, in 1901 on the death of his mother, as Edward VI, aged 59. He died in 1910.

Alongside the Bedford photographs is one by Abdullah Frères of the Prince of Wales in Constantinople. But Abdullah Freres pictures of the city were also on offer at the London Photograph Fair.

A visit to the exhibition inspired a trip to the fair. It has been running since 1982, and is a delightful affair in that it is utterly without razzmatazz: tickets were £5 on the door and the dealers are placed cheek by jowl in the ground floor rooms of the Holiday Inn, Bloomsbury.

At the lower end, an early photographic album of Constantinople, including 24 original albumen photographs, attributed to Pascal Sébah and dated 1880, were on offer for £1,100. They included a charming image of Sufis. At the higher end was a full panorama at £8,000.

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Pick up bargains at the London Photograph Fair

The offerings are eclectic; they come from all over the world and any and all eras. It’s a case of browsing and asking. As a novice buyer – my last foray was spending 10 lira on an earlyish Turkish skiing photograph from a street seller in Kadıköy – I bought one group of slightly tattered but charming Istanbul photographs at a price of eight for £70; better, individual large photographs may be priced at about the £100 mark.

One of the leading dealers at the fair is Paul Frecker. He had already visited the Cairo to Constantinople show, with the eye of an expert. ‘I thought it was great,’ he said. ‘The thing that struck me most about it was the extremely fine quality of the prints. It’s so rare to see albumen prints of that size from that period that are still in such pristine condition with such wonderful tones. The fact that they’ve hardly been looked at for the last 150 years is obviously a contributing factor but they must have been of the highest possible quality to begin with. Given that they were intended for the royal family, I imagine Bedford pulled out all the stops when it came to printing them.’

He called the show, ‘brilliantly curated’. ‘I like shows where the public is given plenty of relevant information to help contextualise the images and it got that just right. I’m looking forward to go back and seeing it again with the audio guide. I also liked the mixture of photographic prints with related objects, not just the artefacts that the Prince of Wales brought back from the tour but also the stereo views from Bedford’s regular ‘day job’ and the Carte-de-Visite portraits of the various members of the royal party, the Egyptian Pasha, the Turkish Sultan, and others.’

The next edition of the photography fair is at the Bloomsbury Holiday Inn on March 8, 2015. Following that will be on May 24 at Two Temple Place WC2R 3BD. Cairo to Constantinople: Early Photographs of the Middle East runs at The Queen’s Gallery until February 22, 2015.

Main image shows Haghia Sophia from the Hippodrome, taken on May 27, 1862. All photos courtesy of the Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014.

Dubai is determined to prove itself as a cultural capital with a strong presence of visual arts in the region and on the world stage – and the introduction of a new art fair might steer it along in the right direction.

The inaugural World Art Dubai joins the established Art Dubai on the art calendar, the fairs taking place just one month apart. In a case very similar to what happened when ArtInternational came out of the woodworks last year and challenged veteran Contemporary Istanbul’s place as the city’s only art fair, we are anticipating to see how World Art Dubai competes alongside a fair considered to be one of the best in the world. Likewise, we wait with bated breath to see which Turkish galleries – with some experiencing difficulties and closures this year – will participate.

The focus of World Art Dubai is on affordable art, with galleries from 35 countries participating. The fair is setting itself apart by calling itself the ‘only accessible art fair in the region’, aiming to attract a wider audience that encompasses potential collectors and students, as well as the usual brackets of established collectors, curators and art lovers.

So far the list of participating galleries or artists has not been released but we do know that over 700 artworks spanning modern, contemporary and fine art will be on display. Traditional disciplines such as painting, photography and sculpture will be presented alongside installations, performances, mixed media, new media and – what seems to be the hottest form of contemporary art at the moment – street art.

The fair takes place April 8 to 11, 2015 at the Dubai World Trade Centre.

We are back in Beyoğlu for a jam-packed gallery walk, in which shows of contemporary Turkish masters and Orientalist painters can be enjoyed alongside works by on-the-rise artists from Turkey and the surrounding region.

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Merve Şendil, ‘Start’

Let’s start at the Tünel end of Istiklâl Caddesi. On Asmalımescit Caddesi, at No 5, ALAN Istanbul is hosting the third solo show of the young artist Merve Şendil. The gallery is transformed into a surreal and mysterious universe in What if, where Şendil’s 3D objects, paintings and sound installations trace the artist’s imagination and explore the notions of fantasy and reality. Please enquire directly with the gallery for prices.

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Sıtkı Kösemen, from the series ‘Invisible’

Further up at No 32, Sanatorium is in its last days of a photography show by Sıtkı Kösemen. In Invisible, images of people, places and unexpected scenarios are presented alongside photos of staged scenarios and models posing.

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Sıtkı Kösemen, exhibition view

Each series is not displayed together: rather, the photos from one group are combined with photos from another group, with each wall of the gallery following this formula. This presentation allows the artist to tell different stories from different points of view. Whether staged or spontaneous, Kösemen takes his photographs whenever the mood strikes him. There is no retouching or any post-production on the images, and the result is accomplished, striking work. Prices range from TL3,000 to TL7,000.

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Semiha Berksoy, ‘Smiling Self-Portrait’, 1969, oil on hardboard, 98 x 69 cm

On perpendicular Meşrutiyet Caddesi, Galerist, at No 67, is celebrating its partnership with the Semiha Berksoy Foundation by staging a comprehensive exhibition showing the life and work of one of Turkey’s greats. Wall of Hallucination displays Berksoy’s paintings alongside audio recordings, videos, photographs, personal objects and documents that offer glimpses into the unique talent and personal life of one of Turkey’s most beloved prima donnas.

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Semiha Berksoy, ‘My Mum and Me’, 1974, oil on masonite, 100 cm x 70 cm

The partnership between Galerist and the Semiha Berksoy Foundation aims to promote the artist’s work in Turkey and internationally and to support the establishment of the Semiha Berksoy Museum. The museum will not only be an exhibition space for the artist’s works, but also have a theatre stage and a concert hall, and classes for performing arts students. Berksoy was a pioneer of the of the multi-faceted artistic approach, beginning her career in the first Turkish sound movie, performing in the first Turkish opera and leaving a significant imprint on the country’s visual arts scene.

‘Berksoy paints her passion, love and pain in a linear and simple way. Placing herself in the centre of her works, Berksoy does not differentiate life and art; her paintings are extensions of her brave, enthusiastic, disciplined and unique personality, as well as her comprehensive, multi-disciplinary education and experience,’ says Galerist’s Media Relations Manager Müge Çubukçu. The works are priced from €6,000 to €50,000.

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Franciszek Żmurko (1859–1910), ‘At the Order of the Padishah’, 1888, oil on canvas, 135.5 x 240 cm

Next door, it’s Pera Museum’s turn to celebrate the 600th anniversary of Polish-Turkish diplomatic relations. The museum’s offering, Orientalism in Polish Art, aims to highlight the Orientalist trend in Polish painting, drawing and textiles from the 17th to the early 19th centuries. The artworks were selected to illustrate the Polish relationship with the Ottoman world and, to a lesser extent, the Near East and North African regions.

‘In paintings [such as the above], the obsession with the Orient, which had been developing in Europe since the romantic era, attains a new dimension, one tinged with the decadence of the late 19th century and a fascination with the relationship between beauty and death, between sensuous pleasure and cruelty,’ says the museum’s Digital and Social Media Supervisor, Bihter Serttürk.

In the above work, Franciszek Żmurko presents an exotic image of a harem chamber – with gleaming fabrics and scattered jewels – as a setting for an odalisque murdered ‘by the order of the padishah’. This violent death is made all the more dramatic by the oppressive, darkly sensuous atmosphere of the harem, which is further amplified by the heavy draperies, the dishevelled sheets, the scattered furnishings, and the deep contrasts of darkness and light on the woman’s body.

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Piotr Michałowski (1800–1855), ‘An Encounter of the French Infantry with an Arab Cavalry’, 1844–1845?, watercolour, pencil on paper, 46.3 x 55 cm

It was rare that Oriental themes, or even isolated Oriental motifs, appeared in the works of Piotr Michałowski. Apart from the watercolour shown above, Michałowski’s works with Oriental accents of any sort are limited to a handful of portraits and quasi-portraits, which Jan K Orłowski has quite appropriately labelled ‘lone riders’. The striking feature of this work is the way in which the Arab riders and their horses are separated from the French infantrymen on the margin of the composition. The latter, as in many representations of the Battle of the Pyramids, creates a modest impression – hardly a bayonet-bristling wall which had just stopped the onslaught of savage desert riders.

Come back onto Istiklâl Caddesi and head towards Taksim Square. On your right, at No 163, the building packed with galleries, Mısır Apartments, has new exhibitions of interest.

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Eşref Yıldırım’s ‘Prison for Minor Offenses’, photo: CHROMA

On the second floor, Galeri Zilberman’s second venue, which has been turned into a space for artists wanting to exhibit a single project, is displaying the first of these projects: a work by Eşref Yıldırım that was first shown at the 5th Sinop Biennial.

In Prison for Minor Offenses, the street vendor is a one-person jail which offers people a quick and easy way to serve a sentence of their choosing for any minor offence they may have committed. Instead of wishing for redemption, it suggests the practicality of implementing punishment for offences such as heart breaking, cheating and betrayal. Much like this work, the rest of Yıldırım’s oeuvre is filled with dark humour. His works don’t wait for audiences to come to them; instead the artwork comes to the viewer and demands an interaction. The work is priced at TL25,000.

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Walid Siti, ‘The Other End’, straw, wood and acrylic on MDF, 54 x 40 x 40 cm

On the third floor, Galeri Zilberman’s first space is hosting the Iraqi-Kurdish artist Walid Siti’s show, New Babylon. Combining natural landscapes with man-made construction tools in his sculptures and drawings, Siti explores the political, geographical and cultural outlooks on the ever-changing urban landscape of the Middle East. Together, Siti’s works create the atmosphere of a modern-day Babylon with its fragile towers doomed to a cycle of destruction and reconstruction.

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Walid Siti, ‘Three Point View’, pigment print, 110 x 72 cm

Siti’s works have a timeless quality: they capture the essence of nature and depict the most basic structures invented by mankind. Although charged with political and cultural messages, the works are malleable and open to interpretation, reflecting our world in a style of naivety. Prices range between $US 2,000 and $US 70,000.

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Nejat Satı

On the fourth floor, Pi Artworks is hosting an exhibition of abstract paintings by Nejat Satı. Nefs is a new series in which light, colour and dynamic abstract shapes create paintings that are open to various interpretations.

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Nejat Satı

Taking his work in a new direction, the young artist shows a newfound maturity with this series. The world of Satı is not quiet and monotonous but instead wavy and alive. His paintings contain hidden colours and energy that is only partially revealed by the top layer of paint. Prices range from TL3,000 to TL30,000.

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Elvan Alpay

Across the hall, Galeri Nev is opening a new exhibition of the Ankara-born artist Elvan Alpay this Friday (November 28). Expect lots of large-scale magnetic floral canvases in Biophilia II. Please enquire directly with the gallery for prices.

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Defne Koz

Leave the building and keep heading towards Taksim Square. Turn right on Turnacıbaşı Caddesi behind the Galatasaray Lycée, where the new branch of Istanbul’74 at No 9 is hosting a new collection by innovative designer, Defne Koz. The 12 objects on display in Solid Air explore the potential of innovative 3D technologies, parametric geometry and LED lights. Please enquire directly with the gallery for prices.

Koz also has a work displayed at the 2nd Design Biennial, taking place at the nearby Galata Greek Primary School. Justaddwater is a proposed new nutrition ecosystem that preserves the simplicity and comfort of processed cuisine, while combining it with micro gastronomy.

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Marco Veronese, from the ‘Melancholia’ series

Further down at No 21, the tiny Gama Gallery is hosting the Italian artist Marco Veronese, who explores the ever-fascinating subject of love with seven works. ‘My works always are a curious mélange of refined images and profound messages that come to life from an unusual mix of digital photography and silicone. The subjects of my work are linked to the problems of a society that is increasingly torn between salvation and self-destruction. I wanted to address the theme of ‘love’ with seven works, looking at its key stages, such as falling in love, burning passion and finally reminiscence,’ says the artist about the exhibition Love. Please enquire directly with the gallery for prices.

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Key: Red – ALAN Istanbul, Blue – Sanatorium, Yellow – Galerist, Green – Pera Museum, Purple – Mısır Apartments (Galeri Zilberman, Pi Artworks, Galeri Nev), Orange – Istanbul’74 Galatasary, Turquoise – Gama Gallery

Click here for the interactive map.

This year, Turkish cinema celebrates its 100th birthday and Istanbul Modern celebrates its 10th. To commemorate both dates, the museum has staged an exhibition which highlights the ‘love affair’ between Turkish cinema and its audience. As per the majority of Istanbul Modern’s shows, the exhibition is well laid out and beautifully lit. Curated by Müge Turan and Gökhan Akçura, the exhibition takes viewers on a journey through Turkey’s cinema history, a history that would have largely been neglected had it not been for the efforts of zealous film fans. Film posters, paraphernalia, recreations of movie stars’ bedrooms, magazine covers and audiovisual displays are brought together for a thoroughly fascinating show that film aficionados especially will appreciate.

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The above photo shows an example of a ‘cinema lantern’, which were gigantic handmade posters, often covering the entire façade of the building and illuminated from within, thus attracting audiences even from far distances. In the early years of the Republic, these ‘lanterns’ were painted by the artist Münif Fehim for cinemas on the Golden Horn and by Mithat Ağakay for ones in Beyoğlu.

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The most common way for audiences to find out about which films played in which cinemas was from newspaper and magazine advertisements and film posters. The first illustrated film advertisement dates back to Ottoman times and movie posters began to adorn the streets of Istanbul in the 1920s, when the first cinemas opened.

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‘The only place of entertainment on the Great Avenue suitable for everyone are the cinemas,’ said the journalist Naim Tiralı in his 1947 book The Great Avenue. The above photo shows Atlas Cinema on İstiklâl Caddesi in Beyoğlu (which is still luckily operating today).

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Fans got their hands on any memorabilia they could: collecting autographed photos, trading cards inserted into packs of chewing gum, calendars, postcards, tea saucers and album books and getting haircuts fashioned on Turkish actors such as Ayhan Işık were just some of the way they showed their devotion. The above shows a signed photograph of the actor Engin Çağlar who had his heyday in the 1960s (left) and an example of a mad movie fan’s locker room. Its touches like this that make Istanbul Modern’s exhibitions special.

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Film stars began appearing on magazine covers in Turkey in the 1920s. In the beginning, they were mostly foreign actors but by the 1950s, Turkish stars began appearing on the covers. Interestingly (or not), most of the time the stars who made it onto magazine covers were women. The writer Sezai Solelli, who wrote five feature films from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, says in the March 1963 issue of Ses magazine: ‘This has been a principle of marketing since ancient times. Advertising experts say that we should use women to sell whatever we want to sell.’

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Other displays include old movie ticket stubs, photographs of gala receptions, recreations of stars’ bedrooms and examples of fan letters.

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The exhibition runs until January 4, 2015.

We are in Nişantaşı for our gallery walk this week for predominantly solo shows of Turkish artists, mostly spanning the disciplines of painting and sculpture.

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Murat Atabarut's Yeşilçam tree

Start on Mim Kemal Öke Caddesi. Opposite Maçka Park and near the Istanbul Technical University, Maçka Sanat (main image) at No 31 is opening its annual new year exhibition tomorrow with a very fitting work for 2014, which celebrated 100 years of Turkish cinema. The designer Murat Atabarut has created a tree album of the passed stars from Turkey’s film industry ‘Yeşilçam’ era. Please enquire directly with the gallery for prices.

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Şeyda Cesur, ‘Skin’, 2014, oil on canvas, 140 x 170 cm

Head away from Maçka. At No 12, Merkur Gallery is hosting the latest paintings by Şeyda Cesur. For Update, the artist has created works which question the restriction of images. Viewers can look forward to more technically advanced works from the Antalya-born artist.

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Şeyda Cesur, ‘Deal’, 2014, oil on canvas, 150 x 180 cm

Current affairs and their associated images play an immense part in Cesur’s work. The impact of media modernises itself on her canvases. Prices range from TL20,000 to TL22,500.

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Nuri Bilge Ceylan, ‘Sardes’, 2003

On perpendicular Abdi İpekçi Caddesi, Dirimart at No 7 is ahead of the game with an exhibition of photographs by the master filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Making a name for himself as a photographer as well as an award-winning director in recent years, About Looking brings together Ceylan’s enigmatic photographs that are as atmospheric as his films. Please enquire directly with the gallery for prices.

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Cüneyt Aksoy, ‘Şafak Habercisi’, 2014, mixed media on canvas, 140 x 250 cm

Further at No 22, Kare Gallery will open a new group exhibition this Thursday (December 4). The show is entitled Müphem, which translates to ‘hazy’, and as per the majority of Kare Gallery’s shows, is highly conceptual in nature. Works come from all disciplines – painting, paper works, video art, sculpture, photography and performance – and the idea was to for participating artists to ‘open the doors to [their] indecisive dreams’.

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Hasan Özgür Top, ‘Gündelik Hayat’, 2013, light box, 43 x 55 cm

The gallery’s director, Fatma Saka, wants viewers to pay attention to the oil painting by Cüneyt Aksoy (above top) and the photography by Hasan Özgür Top (above). Prices range from TL500 to TL10,000.

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Ali Elmacı, ‘Kill Him Make Me Laugh III’, 2014, oil on canvas, 175 x 220 cm

Even further at No 42, x-ist is hosting the bold artist Ali Elmacı. His colourful paintings depict wacky scenes, but yet something more sinister lies within. The artist says he produces images of ‘ugly and evil’, which for him is synonymous with authority. Thus, the disturbing landscapes showcased in Kill Him Make Me Laugh have elements of what ‘New Turkey looks like’. The symbolism he uses in his über-detailed work speaks volumes about the country’s leadership. Prices range from €2,500 to €11,500.

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Kazım Karakaya, ‘Dogs Series I’, 2014, iron, 134 x 56 x 145 cm

On parallel Teşvikiye Caddesi, at No 131, Bozlu Art Project is hosting the sculptor Kazım Karakaya’s exhibition Transformation. Consisting of recent works as well as 11 sculptures produced using waste materials during a 5-month tenure at an iron and steel plant in Bursa, the show aims to answer the question: Can the same form and the same material carry intrinsically different meanings?

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Kazım Karakaya, ‘Warriors Series I’, 2014, aluminium, 206 x 65 x 145 cm

The recycling of waste materials and transforming industrial production into artistic creations is not the only reason for the exhibition’s name. The series ‘Warriors’ (above) questions the human condition and the ‘transformation’ of human beings. The series, underlining how increasingly normalised violence is becoming in our society, references the dualities of light and shadow, and absence and fullness to reflect the emotions and conflicts that human beings experience. Please enquire directly with the gallery for prices.

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Seo Young Deok

Make your way down the perpendicular Osman F Seden Sokak. Then turn left down the second street you come across, Şakayık Sokak, and at No 37, SODA is hosting the second solo exhibition of the South Korean sculptor Seo Young Deok. For Link, Deok has created five special pieces that are an expression of the restlessness people feel living in a highly technological civilization. Creating sculptures of human bodies and heads out of chains, the artist underlines our links to technology and our chains in society. Please enquire directly with the gallery for prices.

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Gülden Artun, ‘Stop’, 2014, 80 x 80 cm

Head back down Şakayık Sokak, the same direction you came from. Take the second right (Ihlamur Nişantaşı Yolu) and then the first left onto Prof Dr Orhan Ersek Sokak. At No 14, TEM Gallery is hosting the veteran painter Gülden Artun.

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Gülden Artun, ‘Yellow Flags’, 2014, 120 x 147.6 cm

The gallery’s owner, Besi Cecan, has been working with Artun since 1994. ‘I search for honesty in an artist’s work and I find this in Gülden’s work. Painting is her joy and she paints what she lives and observes. That is why her work is so versatile. Her paintings make me think and I love to analyse the psychology behind the contrasts depicted,’ she says. Prices range from TL1,500 to TL17,500, depending on size.

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Key: Blue – Maçka Sanat, Red – Merkur Gallery, Yellow – Dirimart, Purple – Kare Gallery, Green – x-ist, Orange – Bozlu Art Project, Brown – SODA, Grey – TEM Art Gallery

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The Sakıp Sabancı Museum has really outdone itself. Its current exhibition, a survey of the later part of the career of Catalan artist Joan Miró, is a wonder. Although I personally don’t connect with a lot of Miró’s work, I can’t deny this is a great exhibition: intelligently laid out, cleverly lit and well supported with titbits of fascinating information about the artist and the man himself. Staged in collaboration with the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona, the Successió Miró SL and the Pilar and Joan Miró Foundation in Mallorca, there are 125 works on display – oil and acrylic paintings, lithographs, etchings and his signature assemblage sculptures – and the exhibition is the last in the trilogy of shows paying tribute to the Spanish masters (following Picasso and Dalí).

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‘Woman and Bird IV’, 1969, oil and charcoal on canvas, 73 x 50 cm, private collection, photo: Joan Ramon Bonet

As the title tells us, the exhibition focuses on the themes of women, birds and stars, subjects that Miró explored amongst others for many years in the later part of his career. The information on the wall tells us that this period of maturity is one the artist probably enjoyed most. The Second World War and the Spanish Civil War were over, he had financial security, and his friend, the architect Josep Lluís Sert, built him a studio in Palma de Mallorca, where Miró settled in 1956. In the 25 odd years that he worked and lived in Mallorca until his death in 1983, Miró defined his style, restricted his themes, worked only with an elementary colour palette and concentrated on a specific imagery, the three mentioned above as well as the moon, sun and constellations. Ironically, it was this stricter path that allowed Miró to experiment more freely.

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Joan Miró and Llorens Artigas, double-sided plaque, 1946, earthenware, 19.5 x 25.5 cm, private collection, photo: Joan Ramon Bonet

During the 1940s, Miró developed a vocabulary of poetic signs that made an appearance in most of his later work. The works are concerned with cosmology: the sun, moon and stars appear amongst compact figures only partially completed and identified by eyes or hair. Other elements, such as black dots and lines, appear in a sporadic manner. There are also coloured dots, short brushstrokes, splashes and all kinds of gestural marks which allude to stars and constellations. The above work from the mid-1940s, which he collaborated on with the ceramic artist Llorens Artigas, shows the genesis of Miró’s later style – the figures’ heads are very reminiscent of a sun and moon, the coloured dots are present and the brushstrokes are heavy and short.

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‘Figure and Birds in front of the Sun’, 1976, oil on canvas, 146 x 97 cm, private collection, photo: Gabriel Ramon

Miró's style and especially the way in which he portrayed forms later in his career, did not arise suddenly – it was a slow process. After settling in his studio in Palma de Mallorca, Miró dedicated himself above all to etching, lithographs and ceramics. When he returned to painting in the early 1960s, his work was much freer and more expressive, with effects such as drips, handprints or splashes of colour spread over the canvas. He later applied these techniques to his sculptures and ceramics as well.

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André Breton, Joan Miró, ‘Constellations’, 1959, book with 1 lithograph and 22 reproductions heightened with pochoir, 47.5 x 38.3 x 5.3 cm, published by Pierre Matisse, New York Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona FJM 6828, photo: Jaume Blassi

The above shows the book Constellations, published in 1959. In terms of iconography, the book showcases the most important pictorial signs of Miró’s language: colours and reduced and flat, backgrounds are lively, and figures are basic and stylised.

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‘Series I’, 1952-1953, etching, 38 x 45.5 cm, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona FJM 5737, photo: Jaume Blassi

Throughout his career, Miró also produced many prints. A number of his lithographs and etchings are displayed in the show. For both these mediums, Miró used original techniques. When he made etchings, for example, instead of drawing on a stone slab, he engraved an image on a metal plate with a sharp tool. The plate was then covered with wax and an acid-resistant substance. The engraved sections were then treated with a corrosive acid. Paper was then placed on the plate and the incised image transferred to it by painting. This allowed for a richer, more textured final product.

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‘Personage and Bird’, 1967, bronze, 43 x 32.4 x 24 cm, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona FJM 7263, photo: Jaume Blassi

Miró’s ‘assemblage sculptures’ are made of found objects, which are combined and cast in bronze. The artist started making these in the 1960s. As the above shows, once cast in bronze, the found objects lost not only their original function but also their individual colours and textures. They became part of a more homogenous sculpture.

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‘Woman and Bird’, 1967, painted bronze, 263 x 82.5 x 47.5 cm, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona FJM 8648, photo: Jaume Blassi

Towards the end of the 1960s, Miró introduced colour into the sculptures. The titles corresponded with those of Miró’s other work and referenced women, birds, stars, night, day or escape. The sculptures also referenced the same iconography seen in his pairings, but he substituted objects to parallel those signs. The above shows a sculpture called ‘Woman and Bird’, with a yellow rake representing the woman.

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San Boter studio

The exhibition not only traces Miró’s work, it also places great emphasis on his working quarters and processes. A recreation of his Son Boter studio can be seen above. After two of his murals were awarded the Guggenheim International Award in 1958, he was able to afford a building close to his Mallorca studio that he also turned into a studio. The building was a two-storey farmhouse dating back to the 18th century, named after the merchant Llorenç Boter. Miró felt very comfortable in this studio, which he set up meticulously, and this feeling of freedom spilled into his work.

Here are some more works which are on display:

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‘Birds’, 1974, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 97 cm, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, gift from Pilar Juncosa de Miró FJM 4784, photo: Jaume Blassi

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‘Untitled’, 1964, pen and coloured pencil on paper, 18.8 × 14.8 cm, Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró a Mallorca FPJM 1231a, photo: Joan Ramon Bonet

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‘Bird in the Night’, 1967–1968, oil and graphite pencil on canvas, 41 x 24 cm, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona FJM 471, photo: Jaume Blassi

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‘Personage’, 1970, bronze, 200 x 120 x 100 cm, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona FJM 13006, photo: Jaume Blassi

The Museum is now open until 10pm on Wednesdays and Fridays so there’s no excuse to not visit this stunning show. It runs until February 1st, 2015.

We have a compact walk in Beşiktaş this week as three of the neighbourhood galleries, namely Kuad, Rampa and Galeri Ilayda, have extended their current exhibitions, which we have covered in previous walks (click here and here to read more).

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TUNCA, exhibition view

Start on Şair Nedim Caddesi, the lower of the two Akaretler streets. At No 4, Art ON Istanbul is hosting the mononymous artist TUNCA, who explores the political, social and cultural aspects of ‘taste’ in his show Desire. TUNCA was interested in what 20th-century leaders ate. He undertook a professional culinary course, did extensive research, painted the leaders at the dinner table and made a performance video in which he cooked each of the leaders’ favourite meals.

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TUNCA, ‘Untitled’, 2014, 3.5 gr 24 ct pure gold, 0.28 ct brilliant, 2 x 0.8 cm

TUNCA’s ambitious and fascinating project reminds us that ‘food and drinking culture’ is the most tangible form of abstract thinking. He is also able to highlight that ‘taste’ is a social memory but without adopting a didactic approach. Please enquire directly with the gallery for prices.

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Yusuf Aygeç and Furkan ‘Nuka’ Birgün, ‘Fuel My Ships’ / ‘No Turning Back’, 2014, mixed media on canvas, 160 x 120 cm

On the other side of the street at No 25, C.A.M. Galeri (main image) is hosting a duo show of the painter Yusuf Aygeç and the street artist Furkan ‘Nuka’ Birgün. In Sensing Through My Nose, the artists present homogeneous canvases they have created together that collectively aim to take audiences on a journey of nostalgia and memories.

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Yusuf Aygeç and Furkan ‘Nuka’ Birgün, ‘Someday’ / ‘I Hear Sniffing’, 2014, mixed media on canvas, 160 x 140 cm

C.A.M. Galeri’s Director Melek Gencer says that because the artists belong to the same generation as she does, she is able to relate to their works more profoundly. She also says the artists have done a great job, as far as collaborations go. ‘They have swapped roles in some of the works: Birgün painted the portraits while Aygeç painted the background, which is the opposite of what they usually do. Birgün is used to painting large areas with spray paint, but for the show he worked in much smaller areas. And similarly, Aygeç worked with spray paint, which he usually doesn’t do. I like how they chopped and changed their roles.’

Prices range from TL4,500 to TL18,500.

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M Zahit Büyükişleyen

Further afield on Hüsrev Gerede Caddesi, RenArt Gallery at No 39, is hosting a new series of oil paintings by the veteran Adana-born artist M Zahit Büyükişleyen. In Transformation of Autumn, Büyükişleyen looks at the process of one season going into another. His free brushwork and use of a subtle colour palette present abstract yet somehow realistic canvases of autumn landscapes.

Please enquire directly with the gallery for prices.

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Key: Red – Art ON Istanbul, Blue – C.A.M. Galeri, Yellow – RenArt

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Main image by Murat Germen.

Earlier this week, the Research Centre for Anatolian Civilisations (RCAC) has announced a fresh batch of fellowship opportunities for the 2015–16 academic year. The overall aim of these fellowships is to develop and facilitate research projects that are concerned with the art, history, architecture and archaeology of civilisations of Turkey. All fellowships include accommodation, travel and stipend making them very attractive programmes indeed. Here are the options:

The Residential and Non–Residential Fellowships are offering around 10 PhD candidates and 10 PhD scholars to spend the 2015–16 academic year at the RCAC in Istanbul. Applications are welcome from scholars specialising in Turkish archaeology, art history, history and related disciplines, from the Neolithic through to the Ottoman era.

The British Institute at Ankara (BIAA)–RCAC Fellowship in Cultural Heritage Management is a new joint fellowship in cultural heritage, concerned with the understanding, promotion and preservation of the historical and archaeological material culture of Turkey and the Black Sea region with particular reference to specific sites, monument or regions. One junior scholar and one senior scholar with an MA or PhD qualification, respectively, in museology, heritage management or a related specialisation, or those with appropriate professional experience in these fields, can apply. The successful candidates will reside in Istanbul for the majority of the time but will also spend two months elsewhere in Turkey carrying out fieldwork or onsite research.

The Kaplan Fellowships in Archaeological Site Management will be granted to one junior and one senior scholar to develop an archaeological management plan with a conservation component for a site in Turkey.

Deadline for applications for these fellowships is Monday, December 15, giving you the weekend to apply.

There are also two joint, one-year fellowship programmes available. The RCAC has paired up with the Villa I Tatti – The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies to offer one junior and one senior scholar the chance to spend the autumn semester at one centre and the spring semester at the other. They will undertake advanced research projects concerned with any aspect of interaction between Italy and the Byzantine or Ottoman Empires (c. 1300–1700). Subjects covered can include art, architecture, archaeology, history, literature, material culture, music, philosophy, religion and science.

The RCAC also paired up with the Kunsthistorische Institut in Florenz, Max-Planck-Institut (KHI), also in Italy. Again, one junior and one senior scholar will have the chance to spend the autumn semester at one institution and the spring semester at the other undertaking research projects on any aspect of study of visual culture from antiquity to the early 20th century.

You have a bit more time to apply for these fellowships; the deadline is January 15, 2015. For more information and to apply, please visit the RCAC website.

We are in Taksim/Cihangir for a short walk this week, visiting two galleries which both – purely coincidentally – have shows by an artist called Halil. Another thing these artists have in common is that they are not afraid to push boundaries and produce candid, witty work.

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Halil, ‘Untitled’, from the ‘Recoil’ series, 2012, fine art print, 30 x 40 cm

HALIL’S I’M PLAYING PING PONG NOW

On Sıraserviler Caddesi, the street that links Taksim to Cihangir, The Empire Project, at No 10, is hosting the second solo exhibition of the photographer Halil. In I am playing ping pong now, audiences can enjoy the artist’s most personal works to date, which have been selected from a recently published book by the same name. The black-and-white images of seemingly random subjects are often sexual in nature and utterly arresting.

The prints on display both highlight the contents of the book and show their strengths as standalone images. There’s an interplay between the different ways of showing photographs: the temporary nature of exhibition in a gallery, and the permanence of being published in a book.

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Halil, ‘Untitled’, from the ‘Recoil’ series, 2012, fine art print, 60 x 90 cm

The gallery’s owner, Kerimcan Güleryüz, says: ‘Halil is a true photographers’ photographer. He has been a strong influence both as a master teacher and as an active artist in the Turkish photography scene. In a way, he is the missing link between photojournalists and artist photographers.’

Most works are available for sale in three different formats: small diptychs, and single prints sized 30 x 40 cm or 90 x 135 cm. Prices range between €500 and €2,750 for 1st edition works.

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Halil Altındere, ‘Angels of Hell’, 2014, video, 13’26”, photo: Ridvan Bayrakoglu

HALIL ALTINDERE

Further up and across the road, Pilot is opening an exhibition of the artist Halil Altındere this Friday (December 19). A video by the artist will be screened at Pilot (No 81) on the opening night, and then the exhibition will continue at the Co-Pilot space next door, while the main building undergoes renovations.

In Reality is Elsewhere, 15 of the artist’s most recent works will be showcased – spanning video, sculpture, oil painting and objects – which have been presented at international exhibitions though not before in Turkey. The exhibition, divided into three parts, explores the idea of reality and aims, in doing so, to understand Turkey’s past and present.

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Halil Altındere, ‘René’, 2012, oil on canvas, 180 x 120 cm

The past year has been a rather big one for Altındere. A brave artist, who explores the repressive structures of political and municipal structures, Altındere made huge waves in the international art world when he released his video, Wonderland, a mock hip-hop clip in which three teenagers from Sulukule rhyme about issues of urban gentrification, isolation and poverty. The video premiered at the Istanbul Biennial last year and was purchased by MoMA in June this year.

Please enquire directly with the gallery for prices.

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Orhan Kemal Museum

For something completely different, there are two interesting literary museums in the area – and if you haven’t visited them yet, now’s the time. On the street perpendicular to Sıraserviler Caddesi, Akarsu Caddesi, the Orhan Kemal Museum at No 30 has a selection of the writer’s paraphernalia and a mock-up of his bedroom. Further afield in neighbouring Çukurcuma is Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence (on Çukurcuma Caddesi).

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Key: Red – The Empire Project, Blue – Pilot, Yellow – Orhan Kemal Museum, Green – The Museum of Innocence

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Main image courtesy of birdutmasali.blogspot.com.

The 600th anniversary of Turkish-Polish relations has stimulated a year of outstanding exhibitions, film programmes, concerts and other events. The Sakıp Sabancı Museum staged an excellent historic show in the spring, SALT Galata is currently showing an exhibition focusing on contemporary Polish artists and a number of galleries (DEPO, Milli Reasürans, Kuad, The Empire Project) have hosted shows focusing on various aspects of Polish art throughout the year. For its turn, The Pera Museum – which is known for its collection of important Orientalist paintings – is fittingly showcasing paintings, engravings and drawings highlighting Poland’s obsession with the Orient from the 17th to the 19th century.

Curated by Professor Tadeusz Majda and organized in collaboration with the National Museum in Warsaw (which loaned many of the works), the show underlines how Poland’s geographical location rendered it particularly susceptible to influences from the East. Although going back to medieval times, it was Poland’s interactions with the East in the 19th century that was the root for such a voracious display of Orientalism in Polish art – and this is most likely the reason why the majority of the works on show date from this century.

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Stanislaw Chlebowski, ‘Sultan Ahmed III hunting with falcons’, 1873, oil on canvas, 111 x 189.5 cm, National Museum in Poznan

Start on the top (fifth) floor and work your way down. The first exhibition hall is reserved for the works of Abdülaziz’s (1861–1876) principal court painter, Stanislaw Chlebowski. After studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in St Petersburg and spending significant time in the studio of the famous French Orientalist painter, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Chlebowski began producing paintings that sparked Abdülaziz’s interest in the early 1860s. It is speculated that the sultan’s aide de camps, Władysław Kościelski, also known as Safer Pasha, introduced the sultan to Chlebowski, but whatever the reason, Abdülaziz invited the painter to Istanbul in 1864, where he remained until the sultan was overthrown in 1876. During Chlebowski’s Turkish period, he painted Ottoman military triumphs, portraits of Abdülaziz and scenes depicting Istanbul life. The battle scenes are particularly majestic, mainly due to their large size and painstaking detail. In fact, because he was a court painter, Chlebowski was known for the accuracy of his battle paintings – he strove for a realistic representation of costumes, weapons and all other elements.

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Józef Brandt, ‘March with the Trophies – Return from Vienna’, c. 1880, oil on canvas, 72 x 112 cm, private collection

The rest of the floor is devoted to military and battle scenes painted by other artists. Paintings showing the Battle of Vienna, a favourite theme, as well as numerous scenes depicting combat with Cossacks, Tatars and Turks were produced by artists such as Józef Brandt, Waclaw Pawliszak and Henry Rodakowski throughout the 19th century. ‘Polish historical painters would often refer to clashes with the Turks in their work, which – if they had been victorious – lifted up the Polish morale in times of our country’s political servitude towards the three partitioning powers,’ says Agnieszka Morawińska, the director of National Museum in Warsaw. A number of the paintings on show were also displayed at SSM’s Distant Neighbour, Close Memories exhibition, especially those by Brandt. One of his Vienna paintings is shown above.

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January Suchodolski, ‘Bonaparte in Egypt’, 1840, oil on canvas, 98.5 x 135 cm, National Museum in Poznan

Among the other tempting military subjects for the European imagination at that time was the conquest of Egypt by Napoleon in 1789, the Greek struggle for independence and the colonisation of the Maghreb by the French. January Suchodolski’s painting above shows a realistic depiction of Napoleon’s victory bathed in the pink and purple glow of an Egyptian sunset.

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January Suchodolski, ‘Farys’, 1836, oil on canvas, 55 x 68 cm, National Museum in Poznan

On the forth floor, we are greeted with paintings of horses, the most popular motif in Orientalist paintings. As Poland is situated between the West and East, it has a history of constant war with Tartars, Turks and Cossacks, so similarly to battle scenes, depictions of horses were very popular in Polish painting. Another reason was that horse paintings underlined the favourite pastime of the Polish gentry: hunting. Again, I was drawn to the beautiful colours in Suchodolski’s canvas during my visit.

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Francize Marko, ‘At the Order of the Padishah’, 1888, oil on canvas, 135.5 x 240 cm

The rest of the floor is dedicated to paintings depicting daily life and vistas of Turkey and neighbouring countries. Genre scenes held a special place in Western European Orientalist painting in the 19th century largely due to the bourgeois society’s taste for the ‘exotic’. These genre scenes particularly favoured the harem, which allowed artists to paint erotic themes without resorting to mythology. The demand for this subject matter led to it being taken up by painters who had never travelled to the East themselves such as Pantaleon Szyndler and Franciszek Żmurko. One of the most magnificent works is Żmurko’s depiction of an odalisque murdered ‘at the order of the padishah’ (above).

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Jan Ciaglinski, ‘View of the city at evening’, from the voyage to Constantinople, 1893, oil on cardboard, 19.2 x 33.2 cm

Polish artists first travelled to the Middle East as members of political missions, scientific expedition or as part of aristocratic travelling parties – and their role was to document the events of the journey (much like a photographer would do today). In the second half of the 19th century, Polish artists began travelling to the East on their own. The greatest landscape painter among the Polish Orientalists was Jan Ciaglinski. Painted in a free hand, with broad, bold brushstrokes, Ciaglinski’s works include sketches from his travels to Crimea (1887–1899), Istanbul (1893), as well as other countries in the Mediterranean. His signature style can be seen in the Istanbul vista above.

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Stanislaw Chlebowski, ‘Sweet Water of Europe’, 1864–1876, oil on canvas, 64 x 107 cm, Military Museum Collection, Istanbul

The above by Chlebowski depicts an everyday scene at Kağıthane.

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Johann Samuel Mock, ‘Game of Mangala’, first half of the 18th century, oil on canvas, 172 x 195.5 cm, The Royal Castle in Warsaw

On the third and final floor, portraits, which underline the Ottoman influence on Polish costume, dominate. Traditional garments seen in portraits of Polish nobles included motifs of Eastern influence, that were, first and foremost, of Ottoman origin. The fashion for turquerie prevailing at European courts in the 18th century yielded musical and theatrical works drawing on Turkish motifs. In the above painting, three figures – identified as the royal eunuch Matthias and two odalisques – are depicted in Eastern dress, and shown smoking pipes and playing the mangala against an striking landscape.

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Zygmunt Papieski, ‘Turkish Woman’, end of 19th century, oil on canvas, 60 x 46.5 cm, National Museum, Warsaw

Ordinary folk were also of interest, as highlighted in the above painting of a Turkish woman in more modest dress.

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Juliusz Kossak, ‘Wawrzyniec Fredro – emissary to Istanbul in 1500’, 1883, watercolour on paper, 48 x 69.8 cm

The exhibition rounds off with examples of another popular subject of Orientalist paintings: depictions of ceremonies held at the Topkapı Palace that the sultan and grand vizier receiving official European envoys. Several paintings and drawings by Polish artists showed Polish envoys entering to Istanbul, such as the above watercolour by Juliusz Kossak.

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Joseph Warnia-Zarzecki, ‘Sultan Selim III’, late 19th to early 20th century, oil on canvas, 167.5 x 96 cm, The Pera Mueum collection

Portraits of sultans remained important across all periods. Besides painting sultans from life, commissions of sultans’ portraits based on engravings, miniatures and paintings from court collections were very common. The above portrait of Sultan Selim III, from The Pera Museum’s own collection, is one such example.

The exhibition is accompanied by a rich film programme exploring Polish cinema from a number of perspectives: master directors, a new wave of young Polish directors and Orientalism. The latter two have screenings until the end of the month so check the museum’s website.

The exhibition runs until January 18, 2014.

Main image shows Wacław Pawliszak’s ‘Eastern Scene with Marabou’, watercolour on paper, 47.5 x 70 cm, National Museum, Warsaw.

We are in Karaköy/Tophane for our gallery walk this week for a diverse group of exhibitions, spanning solo, group and research shows.

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‘Air Manifest: Los Angeles, 1955, 1965’

AIR MANIFEST: LOS ANGELES, 1955, 1965

Start on Meclis-i Mebusan Caddesi, to the east of the Tophane tram stop. At No 35, the urban future think tank Studio-X is offering two exhibitions of interest. The first is a research show which explores a relatively unexamined phenomenon: ‘air urbanism’, a term used to describe the technical, cultural and aesthetic dimensions of air and air effects in the postwar period.

Curated by the International House of Architecture, with Adam Bandler, Marcos Sanchez and Mark Wasiuta, Air Manifest: 1955, 1965 examines two critical events that happened in Los Angeles: the massive ‘smog attacks’ that struck the city on September 14, 1955 and the week-long Watts riots that started on August 13, 1965 and involved lots of buildings being burnt.

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‘Made by Makers’ exhibition view

MADE BY MAKERS

There’s also Made by Makers, which displays 11 installations that were first shown at the Mini Maker Faire in Turkey. Curated by Alican İnal and Yelta Köm, the exhibition aims to highlight how ‘making’ things is getting easier and easier with advances in technology, and more specifically, 3D printing machines. A hand-made projector, a water piano and a darbukator (a digital music instrument) are just some of the inventive pieces on display.

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Ayşegül Dinçkök

AYŞEGÜL DINÇKÖK’S DEEP PASSION IS

Head towards the Tophane tram stop and at the corner of Boğazkesen Caddesi, the cavernous Ottoman arsenal MSFAU Tophane i-Amire CAC is hosting an exhibition of the artist Ayşegül Dinçkök. In Deep Passion Is, detailed photography and video works depict the organisms living on the bottom of the sea.

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Şahin Kaygun, ‘Untitled 129’, 1984

ŞAHIN KAYGUN

Cross the road and follow the big red sign to Istanbul Modern, where a recently opened exhibition focuses on never-before-shown works of Şahin Kaygun. Curated by Sena Çakırkaya, this is the most comprehensive exhibition of the pioneering photographer since he passed in 1992.

In the 1980s, when the term ‘interdisciplinary’ didn’t exist in Turkey’s photographic culture, Kaygun blended photography with different disciplines such as painting, graphics, photography and cinema. Seeking a contemporary interpretation of the link between photography and other art forms, he continued to push boundaries between techniques throughout his career.

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Şahin Kaygun, ‘Like a Seal On His Heart’, 1991

Kaygun was the first photographer in Turkey to exhibit Polaroids, which was a breaking point for his career in terms of his experimental interventions in the 1980s. One of the works that blurs the boundaries between photography and painting is shown above.

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Cemal Erez

CEMAL EREZ’S 24 HOURS OF BUREAUCRAT

Make your way back to Meclis-i Mebusan Caddesi and head towards the Tophane tram stop. Take Kumbaracı Yokuşu, the steep straight lane leading up to İstiklâl Caddesi. Here you will find the former tobacco warehouse that now houses DEPO, which is hosting a show of the painter and filmmaker Cemal Erez. In 24 Hours of a Bureaucrat, 24 pieces – one for every hour of the day – focus on bureaucracy.

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Cemal Erez

Using a mixture of oil paintings and ink drawings, Erez creates a universe of bureaucrats by reassembling fragmented figures to form grotesque bodies. The artist conceived the series living between Paris and Istanbul from 2002 to 2010, and then produced them in the last three years at his studio in Istanbul.

The works are for sale. Please contact Galeri Selvin for prices.

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Aslı Narin, ‘Diffusion’, 2014, diasec C-print, 25 x 38 cm, Edition 1, 3+1

NON-PLACE

Backtrack across the park to the next street leading up to İstiklâl (directly opposite the Kılıç Ali Paşa complex) Boğazkesen Caddesi. At No 45 the industrial space Mixer is hosting a group exhibition of three talented artists. Curated by Mehmet Kahraman, the show brings together the photography of Hasan Deniz, Aslı Narin and Egemen Tuncer, who each interpret the concept of a Non-Place in their own way.

A ‘non-place’ is defined as a place that can be anywhere and doesn’t belong to certain context. Examples include airports, shopping centres and amusement parks – the kind of places that look the same no matter where you are in the world.

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Egemen Tuncer, ‘27 boxes’, 2014, diasec print, 66 x 100 cm, Edition 1, 3+1

While Narin’s photographic abstractions identify these transit places, Tuncer focuses on new forms of these places from a more architectural perspective. Meanwhile, Deniz’s photography tells uncanny stories of these non-places.

Prices range from TL2,000 to TL3,500.

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Gözde Başkent

GÖZDE BAŞKENT’S PALE BLUE DOT

Across the road at No 76B, the intimate Daire is exhibiting works by the young artist Gözde Başkent. In Pale Blue Dot, the artist uses the American astronomer Carl Sagan’s book of the same name as a basis to explore an idea of human nature. But unlike in Sagan’s text, Başkent illustrates a new version of humans, who are constructive rather than destructive and who can establish deeper bonds with their planet.

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Gözde Başkent

In her work, the artist imagines a world where humans are not superior and everything is connected to each other. Prices range from TL1,000 to TL8,500.

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Reysi Kamhi, ‘Untitled’, 2014, mixed media on paper, 37.5 x 34 cm

REYSI KAHMI’S DEAR UNIVERSE

Next door, PG Art is also hosting an exhibition of an artist exploring nature in her work. In Dear Universe, Reysi Kamhi discusses nature from a personal perspective. She created large collages with a technique that combines fluid ebru (marbling) and oil to discuss concepts such as nothingness, flux and dreamlike states.

Please enquire directly with the gallery for prices.

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Key: Red – Studio-X, Yellow – Tophane-i Amire, Green – Istanbul Modern, Blue – DEPO, Orange – Mixer, Purple – Daire, Brown – PG Art Gallery

Click here for the interactive map.

This year’s Young Photographers Award exhibition opened at the Mimar Sinan Art Gallery (at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Fındıklı Campus) on Monday. Dealing with a wide range of topics, from traditional customs to coming of age, the award once again highlights the talented pool of young photographers in this country. Not surprisingly, urban renewal was a popular subject, with one runner-up and some of the nominees tackling this issue that is clearly tugging at the heartstrings of Turks of all generations. The entries for last year’s award captured the ‘underlying feeling of melancholy and loss in the face of the rapid modernisation and change taking place in Turkey today’ – and it seems this year is no different.

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Sara Yazal of Kocaeli University took first prize for her series ‘Loneliness of SEKA’ (above and main). She captured the now derelict building which housed SEKA, Turkey’s first paper factory. The government shut the factory in 2005 due to rising costs in production, which resulted in 734 workers losing their jobs. The workers staged a protest and refused to leave the factory where not only they but their fathers and grandfathers before them worked. ‘Besides their families, the factory was all they [the workers] had,’ says Yazal in a statement. ‘Now when I look at the factory, all I see is the despair, riots, tears, grief, expectations, resistance and hope of those last days.’ When Yazal first visited the factory in 2012, it had not been touched for seven years. The roof leaked, the machines were broken, the walls were covered in moss, the windows were broken, and there were clothes and shoes scattered everywhere. ‘Now all these lives are captured in these pictures. With this project, I wanted to shoot the last moments of an 80-year history,’ continues Yazal. For some good news, it was announced a few months ago that the building will be turned into Turkey's first paper museum.

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Honourable mention Büşra Savlı of Bahçeşehir University captured coming of age in her series ‘Growing Pains’. Her subtle colour palette and chosen angles beautifully highlight the loss of innocence that comes with becoming an adult.

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Honourable mention Berna Küpeli of Yıldız Teknik University tackles mass urban development in her series ‘Phantoms of Future’. By superimposing buildings of the future on the skyline with a centuries-old mosque, Küpeli addresses the clashing of the traditional and the modern, and asks where the line should be drawn.

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This theme is continued in Emre Can Alagöz perfectly titled ‘Monster’. Presenting the bulldozer as something with a mind of its own, the image highlights how capital cities in Turkey (especially Istanbul) are becoming giant construction playgrounds for the government and big business.

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Metin Arabacı’s ‘Remains’, a close-up of a part of building rusted beyond repair with only a telephone reminding of the life that was once there, is striking.

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Once again, black-and-white photography was popular this year, with a number of nominees (and the winner) preferring to shoot in monochrome. Batuha Karadeniz captures an undying Turkish custom, tea drinking, in the simple but effective image, ‘Tea’.

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Meanwhile, Demet Koçak zeroes in on male and female roles in religions in ‘Girls in Mosque’.

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Fikret Karaman’s well-balanced shot part of the series, ‘Strangers by the Forest’ confronts our relationship with nature.

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Other entries were more left of centre such as the above by Metehan Oysal entitled ‘Scream’.

Established in 2010 by Haluk Soykan, the Young Photographers Award is given annually to encourage and support undergraduate photography students. The exhibition brings together the works by all the nominees and will be on display until January 8, 2015. The cocktail reception is tomorrow night (December 25) from 6pm.

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Sara Yazal of Kocaeli University took first prize for her series ‘Loneliness of SEKA’ (above and main). She captured the now derelict building which housed SEKA, Turkey’s first paper factory. The government shut the factory in 2005 due to rising costs in production, which resulted in 734 workers losing their jobs. The workers staged a protest and refused to leave the factory where not only they, but their fathers and grandfathers before them, worked. ‘Besides their families, the factory was all they [the workers] had,’ says Yazal in a statement. ‘Now when I look at the factory, all I see is the despair, riots, tears, grief, expectations, resistance and hope of those last days.’ When Yazal first visited the factory in 2012, it had not been touched for seven years. The roof leaked, the machines were broken, the walls were covered in moss, the windows were broken, and there were clothes and shoes scattered everywhere. ‘Now all these lives are captured in these pictures. With this project, I wanted to shoot the last moments of an 80-year history,’ continues Yazal. For some good news, it was announced a few months ago that the building will be turned into Turkey’s first paper museum.

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Metin Arabacı’s ‘Remains’, a close-up of a part of building rusted beyond repair with only a telephone reminding of the life that was once there, is striking.

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Meanwhile, Demet Koçak zeroes in on male and female roles in religions in ‘Girls in Mosque’.

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Fikret Karaman’s well-balanced shot part of the series, ‘Strangers by the Forest’ confronts our relationship with nature.

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Other entries were more left of centre such as the above by Metehan Oysal entitled ‘Scream’.

We are in Beyoğlu for our last gallery walk of 2014, with a diverse group of not-to-be-missed shows. On your walk, admire the pretty winter decorations on İstiklâl Caddesi.

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Turgut Yüksel, ‘Neo Abraham’, 2014, 100 x 93 cm

TURGUT YÜKSEL’S THE CENTURY ON LOW HEAT

Start at the Tünel end of İstiklâl Caddesi. At Asmalımescit Caddesi No 5, ALAN Istanbul has an exhibition of the caricaturist and designer Turgut Yüksel. The Century On Low Heat investigates the modern age from a contemporary art perspective.

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Turgut Yüksel, ‘Istanbul’, 2014, 64 x 150 cm

The black-and-white paper and plastic works, full of biting irony and wit, use minimal images to trigger the viewer’s imagination. The impact of Yüksel’s works comes from the artist’s intelligence rather than the seduction of visual imagery. Prices range between $3,500 and $8,600.

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Maja Weyermann, 2010, still from video ‘About Paradise I’, 2014, © Maja Weyermann VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

MAJA WEYERMANN’S SEGUES

Down the road at No 32, Sanatorium is in its last week of displaying the first-ever exhibition in Istanbul of the Swiss, Berlin-based artist Maja Weyermann. In Segues, she presents two videos and stills collectively exploring interiors of the past. There is also a computer simulation of the Miller House (an important Modernist landmark, built in 1957) in Ohio overlapped by scenes from films such as Fellini’s Dolce Vita and Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura, which attempts to merge architectural space and cinema.

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Maja Weyermann, exhibition view

‘Weyermann’s curiosity about cultures and trying to understand and explain them through interiors is interesting,’ says the gallery’s owner, Feza Velicangil. Prices range from €400 to €6,200.

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Puzzle

PROPAGANDA AND WAR: THE ALLIED FRONT DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR

Make your way back to İstiklâl Caddesi and head towards Taksim Square. At No 181, RCAC is hosting yet another fascinating exhibition, organised for the 100th anniversary of the Great War. Propaganda and War displays objects, archival documents and Ottoman artefacts and memorabilia from the First World War from the Ömer M Koç Collection.

The colourful, beautifully designed postcards and posters are some of the most outstanding pieces – showing how images of children were juxtaposed with war quotes to produce blatant propaganda. The most interesting piece from this section is the above puzzle. Featuring Alliance motifs and illustrations of soldiers and civilians, the puzzle depicts a playful approach to a tragic event.

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Porcelain plate

Other significant objects are pieces of porcelain featuring portraits of the German Emperor Wilhelm II, the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph, the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed V and the Bulgarian King Ferdinand I. Fine coffee cups, vases and plates like these were designed to publicise and glorify anything related to the Alliance countries’ military and political struggle against the Entente. To German and Austrian families of this period they would have been a part of everyday life.

The works are not for sale.

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Akram Zaatari, ‘Letter to a Refusing Pilot’

AKRAM ZAATARI

Opposite, SALT Beyoğlu is hosting a comprehensive exhibition of the Lebanese filmmaker, photographer, archival artist and curator Akram Zaatari. Zaatari’s oeuvre is generally concerned with the ways in which we record history – from archaeology to social media – within which idea he weaves in interesting sub-themes.

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Akram Zaatari, exhibition view

The floors of the museum are divided thematically, bringing together Zaatari’s videos, photographs and installations dating from 1998 to 2014. Go to the top and work your way down. Works on the third floor explore the body, space and communication. The second floor focuses on photography and archival materials. And the first floor is dedicated to Zaatari’s interest in excavation and archaeology. A new work on Osman Hamdi Bey’s discovery of the Alexander Sarcophagus in 1887 in Sidon is premiered in this section (above), and is certainly the highlight of the exhibition.

The works are not for sale.

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Hakan Poyraz

HAYKAN POYRAZ’S INTIMA

Keep heading towards Taksim Square and take the first right after you pass the Galatasaray Lycée. At Turnacıbaşı Caddesi No 21, Gama is hosting Hakan Poyraz’s show Intima. The artist’s use of colour and technique (stencil art on Plexiglas) gives his work an urban street-art aesthetic. Please enquire directly with the gallery for prices.

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Frieder Nake, ‘Matrizenmultiplikation Serie 33’, 1967, computer generated drawing

HISTORIES OF THE POST-DIGITAL: 1960S AND 1970S MEDIA ART SNAPSHOTS

Come back out onto İstiklâl Caddesi and keep heading towards Taksim Square. At No 8, Akbank Sanat (main image) is hosting a research exhibition paying tribute to art's entry into the digital arena.

Histories of the Post-Digital: 1960s and 1970s Media Art Snapshots has two main axes. The first focuses on a legendary series of performances at the Regiment Armory building in New York in 1966, considered a milestone in the field of art and technology. The second focuses on the fourth and fifth exhibitions of the (New) Tendencies movement, organised in Zagreb in 1968–69 and 1973. These two vanguard exhibitions and the discussion they inspired introduced the computer as an artistic medium. In collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb and private collectors, this section offers an overview of the original early digital artworks of Waldemar Cordeiro, Gustav Metzger, Vladimir Bonačić, Frieder Nake and others.

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Remko Scha, ‘Nixon Murderer’, 1969

A standout work is the above computer installation with its anti-Vietnam war slogan ‘Nixon Murderer’, conceived in 1969 by Remko Scha, and being displayed for the first time. The works are not for sale.

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Key: Red – ALAN Istanbul, Yellow – Sanatorium, Blue – RCAC, Green – SALT Beyoğlu, Orange – Gama Gallery, Purple – Akbank Sanat

Click here for the interactive map.

Main image courtesy of cafesanat.com.

As 2014 comes to a close, I take a look at the year that was.

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In January, we announced that the Ancient & Modern award for original research has gone to Dr Peter Andrews (76), doyen of Asian tent studies, with Harriet Rix (23) taking the Godfrey Goodwin prize. Above, Dr Andrews is shown examining the 18th-century tent of the Indian ruler Tipu Sultan at Powis Castle in Wales.

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Photo: WikiMedia Commons

In February, we learned that the Lycian city of Phaselis, west of Antalya on Turkey’s southern coast, is set to become the latest victim of the ‘insatiable developer’s greed consuming Turkey’s heritage’. The responsible Rixos Hotels group – that ironically titled the project ‘Dream of Phaselis’ – has been quiet on the development front so far.

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Photo: Bulent Kilic

The above shows a young woman getting detained during clashes between riot police and protesters following the funeral of Berkin Elvan in Ankara in March. Photo taken by Bulent Kilic, whom the Guardian recently named photographer of the year.

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Photo: Crimean journalist Adilebkk’s blog

Our hearts went out to the Crimean Tatars who suffered as a result of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. In March, they protested in Simferopol and resolved not to take sides, issuing a statement saying that ‘The Federation of Crimean Tatars (KTDF) is not Party to the Rivalry between Ukraine and Russia’.

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At the height of his paranoia, Erdoğan banned Twitter in March. It was back online in April.

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Photo: Dice Kayek

Until April, the finalists of the third Jameel Prize were displayed at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, with the winning dresses by Turkish fashion design duo Dice Kayek taking centre stage.

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Photo: Yasar Adanali, an urbanist who says Istanbullus ‘live in a giant construction site’

Even more rampant developments were announced in Istanbul and we looked at the top 10 narcissistic projects signed off by the bulldozer-happy Erdoğan.

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Photo: Bulent Kilic

Tragedy struck in May, when an explosion in a coal mine in Soma, Manisa killed 301 people, injured hundreds more and devastated the entire community.

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Pergamon (photo: WikiMedia Commons)

In June, two more Turkish sites were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List – Bursa and Pergamon joined the nine other sites on the list.

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In July, we farewelled the Turkey-born, British author Dr Andrew Mango, who, according to Andrew Finkel, was an ‘intimate friend of the Turkey [who] understood its frailties all too well and loved it all the same’.

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Photo: Hurriyet Daily News blog

In the summer, Turkey saw a schizophrenic climate – drought one minute, flooding the next.

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In August, we were saddened by the news that an Istanbul institution, Pando Kaymak – a breakfast cafe in Beşiktaş – has been given an eviction notice. Indeed, 90-something-year-old Pandelli Shestakof closed up shop on the 100-plus-year-old family business in October.

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Photo: Bulent Kilic

In September, ISIS advanced on the Turkish-Syrian border, displacing the Kurdish community living there. The above photo shows a Syrian Kurdish woman crossing the border from Syria into Turkey.

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In September, the Istanbul Extreme Regatta took place with twelve boats from around the world taking part. The Turkish team finished fourth.

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Photo: ArtInternational

Towards the end of the year, two art fairs brought the best of contemporary art to Istanbul – ArtInternational took place in September and Contemporary Istanbul took place in November. In general, 2014 was not a great year for the Istanbul art scene. Various galleries suffered financially and had to close down, including Galeri Mana and photography gallery Elipsis gallery.

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Photo: Ali Güler

In November, the second edition of the Design Biennial in Istanbul gave a sneak peek into the future of design in the country.

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One of the most important exhibitions taking place in Istabul is the Joan Miró retrospective at the Sakıp Sabancı Museum. The intelligently laid out and cleverly lit show continues until February 2015.

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Still from ‘Winter's Sleep’

Turkish cinema celebrated its 100th birthday in 2014, with a number of events, exhibitions and screenings taking place throughout the year. One of the highlights was the 100 years of love exhibition at Istanbul Modern. It was an especially big year for Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan who took the Palme D’Or at Cannes for his three-hour-plus odyssey The Winter’s Sleep. Turkish documentaries too gathered a lot of attention, with Cem Kaya’s Remake, Remix, Rip-Off being described as ‘a raucous, rowdy and regrettably scatter-brain… side-splitting essay film’ by Variety.

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A painting by Abdülaziz’s (1861–1876) principal court painter, Stanislaw Chlebowski, which shows Sultan Ahmed III hunting with falcons (1873, oil on canvas, 111 x 189.5 cm, National Museum in Poznan), part of the ‘Orientalism in Polish Art’ exhibition at the Pera Museum

2014 marked the 600th anniversary of diplomatic Turkish-Polish relations, with excellent exhibitions staged at the Sakıp Sabancı Museum, the Pera Museum, as well as other arts institutions and galleries throughout the city. There were also a plethora of other events including film screenings, concerts and theatre.

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Proganda postcards on show at the ‘Propaganda and War’ exhibition at the RCAC

This year also commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Great War with a number of events taking place throughout the year including lectures, conferences, exhibitions and symposiums.

Here’s to a happy and healthy 2015!

Main image shows a man shielding a woman from a police officer during protests near Taksim Square in May to mark the one-year anniversary of the Gezi Park protests (photo: Bulent Kilic).

For our first gallery walk of 2015 we are in Nişantaşı, the city’s original gallery hub, for a jam-packed walk to warm up your winter. Most of the galleries are hosting group shows or solo shows of important Turkish artists. A running theme is experimental photography, or photography combined with other disciplines (and there’s currently an exhibition of a pioneering artist in this field, Şahin Kaygun, at the Istanbul Modern).

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Şifa Girinci, ‘Progress – I’, 2014, oil on canvas, 100 x 100 cm

PARDON, WHICH FLOOR?

Start on Mim Kemal Öke Caddesi, where the elegant Merkur Gallery at No 12 will open a new group exhibition this Saturday (January 10). The young curators, Melike Bayık and Mergüze Günay, explore globalisation and the city from a contemporary art perspective in Pardon, which floor?. Through a number of disciplines, the participating artists look at transformations of cityscapes and in nature – a popular subject with Turkish artists these days. There’s poignant photography from Volkan Kızıltunç and Murat Germen, witty mixed media works by Saliha Yılmaz, Şifa Girinci’s unusual portraits, and much more. Please enquire directly with the gallery for prices.

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Fahrelnissa Zeid

FAHRELNISSA ZEID

On parallel Abdi İpekçi Caddesi, the city’s luxury shopping headquarters, the always excellent Dirimart at No 7 is starting off the year with a homage to one of Turkey’s most important female artists, Fahrelnissa Zeid.

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Fahrelnissa Zeid

Zeid (1905–91) was born on Büyükada into an eccentric Istanbul family and married into the Jordanian Royal family without ever giving up her artistic calling. She became celebrated for her wonderfully whimsical and colourful works blending elements of Islamic and Byzantine symbolism with abstract art. This show displays more than 60 of her drawings, many exhibited for the first time. Unfortunately, they are all from private collections and are not for sale.

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A work as part of the exhibition

TRANSPARENCY OF EVIL OR LOOKING TO THE OTHER

Further down, the veteran Kare Gallery at No 22 is hosting Transparency of Evil or Looking to the Other, a group exhibition exploring the themes of good, evil and the ‘other’. As usual, the gallery is staging a thoroughly conceptual show, where artists explore these subjects in disciplines ranging from painting and drawing to photography and mixed-media works. Please enquire directly with the gallery for prices.

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Ali Bilge Akkaya, ‘1G1’, fine art print, 2014, 45 x 60 cm

ALI BILGE AKKAYA’S ONE

X-ist, in the basement of No 42 – committed to discovering young talent – is hosting the first solo show of the young photographer, Ali Bilge Akkaya, a graduate of both Yeditepe University and the prestigious Central Saint Martins college of art and design in London.

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Ali Bilge Akkaya, ‘1C’, diasec, 2014, 45 x 61.5 cm

Akkaya’s beautiful photographs, resembling film stills, may look staged but in fact are totally spontaneous. The artist endeavours to create unfamiliar spaces in everyday scenes by focusing on perfect symmetry. If you are looking for a young artist to invest in, this may be the One. Prices range between €1,000 and €3,000.

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Ali Alışır

ALI ALIŞIR’S VIRTUAL LANDSCAPES

Make your way to the perpendicular Teşvikiye Caddesi, where more surreal works examining the ways people treat nature await. At No 45, Bozlu Art Project displays the Virtual Landscapes of Ali Alışır. Alışır has developed a unique artistic language combining photography and painting, and many of the works in this exhibition fuse natural and digital landscapes, producing uniquely profound works. Please enquire directly with gallery for prices.

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Ece agenda

ECE AGENDA

For something a bit different, make your way to Maçka Caddesi, where Milli Reasürans Gallery (main image) at No 35 is hosting a fascinating research exhibition. Ece Agenda traces the century-old history of the iconic Ece Ajandası diary.

First published in 1910 under the name 'Muhtıra’ and renamed ‘Ece’ in 1932, the agenda was published alongside the most significant markers of 20th-century history in Turkey: the decay of the Ottoman Empire and the founding of the Republic, two world wars, and various economic and social depressions. The diary has been on millions of people’s desks, from famous writers and intellectuals, to politicians and businessmen. This exhibition paints the rich history of the diary through photographs, documents and actual samples which belonged to renowned intellectuals, such as Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu and Füsun Erbulak. The works are not for sale.

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Ece agenda

You can pick up your very own Ece Agenda at Afitap in Karaköy.

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Ertuğrul Tuna, ‘Grim Reaper’, 50 x 70 cm

ERTUĞRUL TUNA’S PAREIDOLIA

Further down at No 29, pop into the intimate Galeri Eksen to admire paintings by the Turkish artist Ertuğrul Tuna, who explores gloomy subjects in Pareidolia. Prices range between TL2,000 and TL 15,000.

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Ayline Olukman, ‘Was Is’, 2011

INTENTIONAL OVERDOSE

A new addition to our walks is ALAN Istanbul’s new art and culture space, Overthose, at No 16, which is launching with a group exhibition of some very fine artists. Intentional Overdose brings together artists creating works of striking visual quality in terms of colour, texture, composition and technique, with the aim of giving viewers an unsettling experience.

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Komet, ‘My secret’

There are colourful sculptures resembling planets by Ardan Özmenoğlu, mixed media portraits by Halil Vurucuoğlu, more works combining photography and other disciplines from Ayline Olukman, a mysterious textured work by the great Komet, and much more. Prices range between $3,500 and $25,000.

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Alain Darré, ‘Psychedelic Sargantana’, 100 x 150 cm

ALAIN DARRÉ’S TRANSFIGRATION

If you still have it in you, the chic design space SODA, further afield at Şakayık Sokak No 37, is hosting the first solo exhibition in Istanbul of the French photographer, Alain Darré. Transfiguration showcases Darré’s photos, which don’t look like photos at all. With their psychedelic colours and experimental techniques, they resemble abstract paintings. Prices range from €4,000 to €6,000.

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Exhibition view

SABAHAT ÇIKINTAŞ’S DE-SIF-RE

Even further afield, another veteran gallery, Mine Art Gallery, hidden in an apartment building on Prof Dr Müfide Küley Sokak, is displaying the well-known Turkish artist Sabahat Çıkıntaş. In her oeuvre, spanning painting, video, installation and even costume design, the artist is concerned with pattern and colour, which can be observed in this show entitled de-SIF-re. Please enquire directly with the gallery for prices.

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Key: Red – Merkur, Yellow – Dirimart, Blue – Kare Gallery, Green – x-ist, Orange – Bozlu Art Project, Brown – Milli Reasürans Art Gallery, Pink – Galeri Eksen, Grey ¬– Overthose, Purple – SODA, Magenta – Mine Sanat

Click here for the interactive map.

The Meetings on the Bridge programme, part of the 34th Istanbul Film Festival, is offering some exciting opportunities for emerging filmmakers.

The application deadline for the Film Development Workshop, to be held April 15–16, 2015, has been extended to Thursday, January 15. The workshop will give directors, screenwriters and producers the opportunity to pitch their feature-length fiction (in genres spanning horror, fantasy and comedy) or documentary projects, after they receive training in how to prepare for, and present, a pitch.

This year, the participants will also be given the chance to have one-on-one meetings with representatives from international production, distribution, fund, market and broadcasting corporations. At the end of the workshop, four awards will be given out: the Ministry of Tourism and Culture Support Award of $10,000, the Melodika Sound Post-Production Award, the CNC (French National Cinema Centre) Support Award of €10,000 and the MFI (Mediterranean Film Institute) Screenwriting Workshop Award.

The deadline for the Work in Progress Workshop is Monday, March 2. The workshop aims to create opportunities for projects to find the necessary support to complete the production process. The directors and producers selected to participate will present at events open only to industry professionals (distributors, festival or fund directors, TV channel representatives) as part of the workshop. At the end, films selected by the international jury will be eligible to receive either the Anadolu Efes Award of $10,000, the inaugural Color-ist Award, awarded for best colour and online editing, or the Başka Sinema Award, which will see the winning film be screened at Başka Sinemas.

Click here for guidelines on how to apply. For more information, email onthebridge@iksv.org or call +90 212 334 08 23.

The Şahin Kaygun exhibition, currently on at the Istanbul Modern, is an absolute treat for photography lovers. Little is written about the Adana-born multidisciplinary artist, who, always seeking new forms of expression, played a pioneering role in photography in the 1980s and 1990s, and generally paved the way for experimental photography in the country.

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‘Untitled’, 1991

The usually light and bright Photography Gallery has been enigmatically lit for the most comprehensive show on the artist since he passed away in 1992. Curated by Sena Çakırkaya, it is supported by archival work and spans the entire of Kaygun’s career from his early experimental intervention in photography in the 1980s – when he produced Turkey’s first Polaroid series – through to his final years when he reached a pinnacle in blurring the boundaries between photography and painting.

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‘Self-portrait’, 1987

In the 1980s, when the term ‘interdisciplinary’ didn’t exist in Turkey’s photographic culture, Kaygun combined photography with disciplines such as painting, graphics and cinema, and explored new and unique applications of photographic techniques. Kaygun’s ultimate goal was to find a contemporary interpretation of the link between photography and other art forms, and this is what the exhibition highlights most fruitfully. Admiring the pieces, one can be forgiven for not realising the artist worked 30 years ago – his work looks thoroughly modern.

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‘Colours in Harmony’, 1991

Kaygun started earning a living painting when he was still in high school. In 1969, he entered the graphic arts department at the State University of Applied Fine Arts in Istanbul. The artist, who developed an artistic interest in photography during his university years, saw graphics and photography as two fields that nourished and complemented one another rather than ones that were separate and distinct.

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‘Untitled’, 1978

In the 1970s, Kaygun went through what was termed as his ‘black-and-white’ period – graphic elements can be seen in his work, which comprised almost exclusively of documentary photographs or portraiture.

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‘Untitled’, 1984

It was during in his years spent in Germany in the early 1980s when Kaygun first started experimenting with photographic language. Kaygun’s Polaroid series represented his first attempt at manipulating photographs. He opened the first Polaroid exhibition in Turkey in 1984 and brought to the forefront a style that was not paid heed by the majority of art enthusiasts. He interfered with the Polaroids right in front of his audience – the withering images and faded colours were replaced with painterly elements that were incorporated onto to the images by scrapping off the emulsion on the surface and adding colour. After this exhibition, Kaygun became the first photographer to be presented with the Ankara Art Foundation Award, which he entered alongside important artists such as Erol Akyavaş and Eren Eyüboğlu.

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‘Untitled’, 1984

Works from this series have been exhibited in major museums and art institutions around the world, and are on loan from the WestLicht Museum of Photography in Vienna, which purchased the collection in 2011.

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‘Untitled’, 1985

Kaygun continued working with Polaroids, incorporating other artistic elements to produce works that either had a fictional narrative or were more experimental. Always with an expressionist approach, Kaygun produced collages, fantastical installations and symbolic narratives. Existential subjects such as humanity, life and death, that can be observed in his earlier work, continued to appear ever more potently in his later work. The political atmosphere of the 1980s (when Turkey withdrew from the international stage) led to a period of individual crisis and introversion that can clearly be seen in his art from this decade.

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‘Untitled’, 1980

In his recurring themes such as the female body, dolls, seashells and dead birds, fantasy and reality are intertwined. The further his subjects were removed from reality, the more he allowed himself to experiment technically.

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‘Untitled’, 1984

The artist once said, ‘I don’t take photographs, I make photographs’, and indeed Kaygun would create the composition in his mind before capturing the image – there was no room for spontaneity in his process.

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‘A Widow’, 1985

Kaygun was also an accomplished filmmaker and considered cinema as the meeting point of all art disciplines. Before dabbling in directing, Kaygun wrote screenplays, but he excelled most as an art director. He decided on the visual aesthetics of films like Dul Bir Kadın (A Widow), Adı Vasfiye (Her Name is Vasfiye), Ah Belinda and Anayurt Oteli (Motherland Hotel). The film credits of A Widow (1985) comprise Kaygun’s photographs, which are shown to be taken by the protagonist in the story.

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‘Rainbow’, 1991

Kaygun’s last series, In the Ancient Seas, which he produced one year before his death, was inspired by the sculptures at the British Museum. Kaygun imagines the ancient figures as characters in his self-fabricated tales and thus presents a different slant on hardened historical aesthetic values. The protagonists of these tales leave the ‘cold halls’ of the museum and are transformed into immortal characters on canvas.

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‘Untitled’, 1991

During the time Kaygun was active, it was often debated whether his works are more congruous with photograph or painting. But this is not what is important. On the contrary, Kaygun’s aim was always to establish an interdisciplinary art language – and he certainly succeeded.

The exhibition continues until February 15, 2015.

We are in Beşiktaş for our gallery walk this week, where three solo and two group exhibitions showcase Turkish and foreign artists working in all disciplines.

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Çağrı Saray, ‘The weight of history’ (three frames in front of the Louvre), 2013, triptych photography, 50 x 67cm each

ÇAĞRI SARAY’S OUTSIDER

Let’s start in Akaretler, a two-pronged street of townhouses built at the end of the 19th century to accommodate high-ranking officials of the Dolmabahçe Palace. A five-minute walk up the hill (Süleyman Seba Caddesi) will get you to the excellent Kuad Gallery (main image), which is hosting a solo exhibition of Çağrı Saray. Saray is known for his peculiar drawings showing bizarre narratives, ordinary scenes and everyday objects. The show, Outsider, however is concerned with Saray’s position as an artist in the current political, economic and cultural milieu, rather than focusing on the content and form of the works themselves. His new white-on-white engravings are the most exciting pieces in the exhibition. Prices range from TL2,000 to TL15,000.

Asked to reflect on what the year ahead might have in store, the gallery’s artistic director, Beral Medra, says: ‘In relation to the political and economic circumstances in Turkey, the EU and our geopolitical region, I think 2015 will be a critical and difficult year for contemporary artists. I would like to see solidarity, trust and collaboration between artists, curators and art critics so that the whole scene can resist the unfavourable state of affairs. Since 2012, the gallery has been working with local and international artists who have been loyal and conscientious to their public, to their socio-political statements and to their critical approach to global developments, regardless of what is dictated by art markets. We will continue to be loyal to our concepts and aesthetic evaluation.’

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Renée Levi, ‘Viola’, 2014, acrylic on cotton, 230 x 230 cm

RENÉE LEVI’S SIBEL

On Şair Nedim Caddesi, the lower of the two Akaretler streets, the intimate Art ON Istanbul at No 4 is hosting the Istanbul-born, Basel-based artist Renée Levi. Sibel showcases her interest in colour, pattern and material. Audiences are confronted with bold works painted on various materials, from canvas to paper, linen and cotton.

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Renée Levi, ‘Sibel’, 2014, acrylic on linen, 230 x 230 cm

The show is ultimately about the artist’s personal perception of what is meant by ‘nothingness’. Levi offers viewers a different concept of rhythm and motion, with work that enlivens the gallery space. Please enquire directly with the gallery for prices.

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Murat Germen, ‘Muto-morphosis #121’, 2013, C-print diasec, 102 x 180cm, 4/7ed + 2AP

WINTER WONDERLAND

Further down at No 25, the elegant C.A.M Galeri is hosting a group show exploring the idea of ‘personal utopias’ in this era of environmental destruction and urban transformation. The works are all based on personal experiences and reflections, and, true to the exhibition’s name, Winter Wonderland, present scenes of winter. There are detailed urban photographs by Murat Germen (above), Sinan Tuncay’s series dealing with ceremonies and circumcision (below), figurative paintings by Nihâl Martlı, abstract, subtly coloured works by Dieter Mammel, and much more. Prices range between TL 1,250 and TL 30, 000.

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Sinan Tuncay, ‘Refusal’, 2013, whole series, inkjet print, 45 x 85cm, 2/7ed + 2AP

Asked to speculate about the year ahead, the gallery’s director Melek Gencer says: ‘In 2015 I want to follow more emerging artists’ works and projects. Also I’d really like to see more retrospective shows and I think the Mehmet Güleryüz retrospective (currently on) at the Istanbul Modern is a good start.’

The gallery says art lovers and collectors should pay attention to the latest addition to the list of artists they represent: the young New York-based Sinan Tuncay. Another young and promising artist is Merve Denizci, a finalist in the Siemens Art ‘Borders Orbits 14’. Her works depict mysterious interiors and figures of girls in soft colours.

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Tuğberk Selçuk, ‘Replica’, 2014, laser cutting iron plate

GOBSMACKED

Further afield, at Hüsrev Gerede Caddesi No. 37, the bright Galeri Ilayda is hosting a group show entitled Gobsmacked. The artists showcased interpret everyday codes and images and deconstruct them, with the aim, as the exhibition’s name suggests, of ‘gobsmacking’ audiences. There is photography, sculpture and mixed-media work that is at once witty and thought provoking. Dilan Bozyel’s astronaut series, in which a space man is depicted on the streets of Istanbul, asks audiences to redefine their understanding of ‘space’. Tuğberk Selçuk showcases his framed sculptures (above). Uğur Çakı presents a contemporary idea of a car. And Genco Gülan’s artworks, known for their ironic twists, highlight various political, social and popular themes (below). Prices range between TL 3,000 and TL 30,000.

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Genco Gülan, ‘Noah’s Jet or Turkish Politics in 1980s’, 2012, brass and stone, 56 x 32 x 11 cm

In 2015, the gallery’s director Şebnem Kutal would like to see more solo shows of Turkish female artists. ‘We should all be looking out for artists who can bring the Turkish contemporary art scene to the international stage and connect East and West.’

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Emilie Gotmann

EMILIE GOTMANN’S 4 YEARS OLD

Next door, RenArt Gallery is opening a new solo show this Saturday (January 17) of the French, Berlin-based artist Emilie Gotmann. In 4 Years Old, figurative metal sculptures, which are fun, cute, ironic and often humorous, on the theme of childhood, will be displayed. Please enquire directly with the gallery for prices.

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Key: Red – Kuad, Yellow – Art ON, Green – C.A.M. Galeri, Blue – Galeri Ilayda, Purple – RenArt Gallery

Click here for the interactive map.

Gallery walkabout: Karaköy/Tophane

The prince and the photographer

Dubai’s new art fair

Gallery walkabout: Beyoğlu

A celluloid love affair

Gallery walkabout: Nişantaşı

The wonder of Joan Miró

Gallery walkabout: Beşiktaş

The RCAC announces new fellowships

Gallery walkabout: Taksim to Cihangir

The Polish Orientalists

Gallery walkabout: Karaköy/Tophane

In the grim future, there are only developments

The future looks grim…

Gallery walkabout: Beyoğlu

The year that was…in pictures

Gallery walkabout: Nişantaşı

News for filmmakers

More than photography: the world of Şahin Kaygun

Gallery walkabout: Beşiktaş