Anticipation is always high as the Istanbul Biennial approaches but with the recent events that have taken place in Turkey, the anticipation for this year’s Biennial is at fever pitch. When the curator of this edition, Fulya Erdemci, announced the theme for the Biennial – taken from the title of the economist-turned-poet Lale Müldür’s 1998 book Mom, am I barbarian? and exploring the notion of the public domain as a political forum – in January, no one realised just how pertinent this theme would become just five months later. And, when I attended the Biennial’s prologue exhibition in Berlin in late May, I also could not imagine the events that would unfold just a few days after my return to Istanbul.
The advent of the Gezi movement which swept the country starting in Istanbul on May 31, and soon reaching cities such as Izmir, Ankara, Bursa, Bodrum, Antalya and many others, has seen the history of the politics of space and collective public action in Turkey completely rewritten. As the protest itself – taking place in the city’s parks which became sites of resistance – and its issues are directly related to Biennial’s theme, the organisers had to go back to the drawing board and rethink the programme. After all, if the Biennial does not address the issues of the movement, it would become immediately irrelevant. In the lead up to perhaps the most anticipated Istanbul Biennial in its history, I spoke to the Biennial’s director Bige Örer about what’s in store.
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One of the exhibiting artist groups is UK's Freee and in their performative work entitled ‘The Manifesto for a New Public’, a spoken choir formed of Freee and other participants read through a prepared manifesto – the participants only reading aloud the statements that they agree with.
The ‘vision’ of the Biennial organisers is ‘to question and discuss the nature of the public space in Istanbul and to open it to constructive dialogue’. Örer thinks that the Biennial is a ‘crucial’ institution for the development of political dialogue, ‘particularly outside of traditional political trajectories’. In addition, it allows for a local issue to be viewed from an international perspective. The Biennial’s theme is far-reaching and important, and I was interested in finding out how it came about.
The theme, Örer tells me, is a ‘reflection of the curatorial practice of Fulya Erdemci’, who has always been interested in the relationship between art and the city. Erdemci’s Istanbul Pedestrian Exhibitions in 2002 and 2005 were the first major urban public space exhibitions in Turkey that adopted a critical stance on the position of the individual in the city. The potential of the public domain to become a political forum is also of fascination to Erdemci. In addition, Erdemci is herself from Istanbul so the country’s current socio-political issues are of utmost importance to her.
The book from which the Biennial takes its title
Another critical component of the theme is poetry, and its role in the interplay between the personal, the public and the political. Borrowing the title from Müldür’s text is likewise significant. Müldür ‘is one of the most influential poets in Turkey, and someone who has developed a unique poetic language. Drawing inspiration from her language, we hope to rediscover and remember the relationship between poetry and contemporary art in this Biennial,’ Örer tells me.
LaToya Ruby Frazier's 2011 photo series, ‘The Grey Area Series’, explores the urban transformation happening in the artist's home town of Braddock, Pennsylvania. The above photo is entitled ‘Fifth Street Tavern’, and shows the Tavern and Braddock Hospital in the background.
The theme, according to Örer, is important to contemporary art in Turkey, which has gained incredible momentum and grown more diverse in the last decade. ‘Exploring questions around notions of citizenship, urban transformation, marginalisation and socio-political change, among many others, the Biennial corresponds not only to the social and political context in Turkey, but also touches upon many crucial questions and debates around contemporary art in the country, namely, relation of art and the public and political spheres, collective imagination and coproduction, institutionalisation and capital,’ Örer says.
A still from Egyptian artist, the late Amal Kenawy's, 2009 video work ‘Silence of Sheep’, in which Anaway staged a public performance in downtown Cairo which saw a group of people cross streets in peak-hour traffic on all fours – a work that landed 15 people in prison.
Originally the organisers wanted to stage events in ‘contested urban public spaces’ such as Gezi Park, Taksim Square, Tarlabaşı Boulevard, Karaköy and Sulukule, and planned to carry out a number of projects that would actually ‘intervene’ in these spaces. The organisers didn’t intend to ‘commission or include the spontaneous protest interventions and performances that happen on the streets’ as they believe ‘that they shouldn’t be domesticated or tamed in the institutional frames to which they are reacting’, but they perhaps wanted to ‘highlight’ these if they already existed. But then Gezi happened.
After the Gezi movement began, the Biennial’s organisers ‘questioned what it meant to realise art projects with the permissions of the same authorities that do not allow the free expression of its citizens’. According to Örer, the organisers ‘understood that the context was going through a radical shift that would sideline the reason d’etre of realising these projects. Moving away from urban public space was a decision made by Fulya Erdemci and the Biennial team’. In her statement, Erdemci elaborated further: ‘I believe that by withdrawing from urban public spaces, thus marking the presence through the absence, we can contribute to the space of freedom, to the creative and participatory demonstrations and forums, instigated by the Gezi resistance.’
5533
The decision to withdraw from urban spaces was a positive one, according to Örer. It meant the organisers were able to ‘establish collaborations with art institutions’ such as ARTER and Salt Beyoğlu, and independent artist initiative 5533, which was founded by young Turkish contemporary artist Volkan Aslan and Nancy Atakan, an American visual artist and art historian .
This year’s Biennial, Örer tells me, differed greatly from the previous biennials, especially when it came to its preparations. ‘Following the [Gezi] events, which were remarkably relevant to the Biennial’s theme, we revised all decisions about the exhibition and made some radical changes. We relocated the works from public spaces to indoors. This showed us once again how important it is to have a flexible format for the Biennial. We also decided for the first time to have free admission to the Biennial, which we feel is very much in line with the exhibition’s vision,’ Örer says.
Christoph Schäfer' 2013 work ‘Nika Riots’ (pastel and acrylic on paper) questions what happens when the ‘audience leave their seats and take to the streets’.
Many ‘exciting’ projects will be shown as part of the Biennial, with 88 artists and artist groups being featured. Some works have been produced directly for Istanbul such as the collaborative video pieces from German conceptual artists Alice Creischer and Andreas Siekmann, and Spanish video artist Maider López’s ‘commentary on the making of routes’. German artist Christoph Schäfer presents his ‘visual narrations’ of Gezi Park (main image shows his photo ‘Park Fiction is Now Gezi Park Hamburg’ taken on June 16, 2013 in the midst of the protests in Turkey) and his above work ‘Nika Riots’. Örer says that projects which combine poetry and literature with visual elements, such as works by Mexican mixed-media artist Jorge Méndez Blake and Pakistani-American artist Shahzia Sikander known for exploring the integration of Muslim and Hindu cultures, ‘are worth waiting for’.
Mierle Laderman Ukeles' 1974 performative work ‘Washing’ involved the artist getting on her hands and knees and scrubbing the floors of a museum to tackle the stereotypes of women's roles in society at the time (depicted here by black-and-white photographs).
There will also be works about public domain and urban transformation from the 1960s and 1970s from Nil Yalter, a pioneer in the French feminist art movement of the 1970s; the late Gordon Matta-Clark, an American artist renowned for his 1970s site-specific installations and New York-based Mierle Laderman Ukeles who features a lot of performative aspects in her work (above).
‘Hotel Italia’
A plethora of parallel events will also take place. These include the new multi-media exhibition by 2012 Full Art Prize winner Işıl Eğrikavuk, which was conceived in response to the Gezi protests and explores the rapid urban transformation of Istanbul. And, a number of events will take place as part of the Italian cultural programme, including Roman artist Angelo Bucarelli’s installation exploring the theme of water and what it means to Istanbul, and a group show by Palermo-based arts organisation Nostra Signora which takes the abandoned and crumbling Hotel Italia in Tomtom in Beyoğlu and ‘aims to renew its spirit’ through various media such as painting, photography and sculpture (above).
The 13th Istanbul Biennial opens to the public on September 14 and runs until October 20. Click on our event listing for more information.