Autumn hues
The second in the series of Istanbul Recitals for the 2018–19 season was given by the French pianist Alexandre Tharaud at the Sakıp Sabancı Museum in Emirgan on November 13. For this recital, the...
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High performance
The 2019 Istanbul Theatre Festival rolls into its final weekend, and for the first time in three years, I didn't miss it all. This past Thursday I joined a full house in the Zorlu PSM Main Theatre for...
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Constantinopoli, circa 1600
This atmospheric view of Constantinople (Italian School, c1600) comes up for sale in London tomorrow evening, part of Christie's Old Masters evening sale (Lot 26, est £100,000–150,000). An inscription...
View ArticleThe secret of the Hill Cocktail
They were serious romantics, the adults who brought me up. They came to Robert College in the decades after the Second World War not just to teach, but to explore Istanbul, forgotten by the world in...
View ArticleThe Seventh Continent
On December 11 the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV) announced the title and theme of the 16th Istanbul Biennial: The Seventh Continent. Nicolas Bourriaud, curator of the upcoming...
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Art On The Streets
Thousands of years ago, our paleolithic ancestors had the impulse to create art, adorning the Lascaux cave walls in paintings of animals, human figures and abstract signs. Their art remains on those...
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‘Ziyaret Tepe’ wins prestigious award
Cornucopia Books has taken its place in publishing history by winning the 2019 Felicia A. Holton Book Award, the top award from the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) and the Society for...
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Freddy Kempf at the Seed
After a hiatus caused by a stay in delectable Tameside for the run-up to the festive season, I am back in Istanbul. On Saturday, January 12 I braved the appalling weather (almost as cold, wet and...
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Cosmic curves
In New York's Ethan Cohen Gallery opens its first solo exhibition of her work, the Turkish textile artist, Belkıs Balpınar, pioneer of the contemporary art kilim, asks her weavers to defy gravity, and...
View ArticleA pilgrim’s pre-Ottoman progress
Author John Mole set the clock back to the times of Chaucer in his Anglo-Turkish Society/Royal Anthropological Institute lecture in Bloomsbury last night as he described a pilgrimage to the Monastery...
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The poetry of wrecks
In the Rahmi M Koç Museum on the Golden Horn, an institution that has rescued so many from the wrecker's yard, it is salutary to recall vessels that have succumbed to the vicissitudes of time and...
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Battersea bliss
You can find Cornucopia at LARTA, the London Antique Rugs and Textile Arts Fair, this week, marooned in a lagoon of glorious textiles in Battersea. LARTA shares the Battersea Park venue with the...
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High performance
The 2019 Istanbul Theatre Festival rolls into its final weekend, and for the first time in three years, I didn't miss it all. This past Thursday I joined a full house in the Zorlu PSM Main Theatre for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Battersea bliss
You can find Cornucopia at LARTA, the London Antique Rugs and Textile Arts Fair, this week, marooned in a lagoon of glorious textiles in Battersea. LARTA shares the Battersea Park venue with the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Touché and all that jazz
The Gilad Atzmon / Sarp Maden Quartet – with Gilad Atzmon (above) on saxophone, Sarp Maden on guitar, Ercüment Orkut on piano, Eylem Pelit on bass guitar and Derin Bayhan on drums – performed in a...
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Pomegranates bitten and seen
Sergei Parajanov: Repentance (Variations on themes by Pinturicchio and Raphael), 1989 (courtesy of the Pera Museum). Occupying the fourth and fifth floors of Istanbul’s Pera Museum until March 17,...
View ArticleMusical Shares: Andrew Tyson at the Seed
The latest in the 2018-2019 series of İstanbul Recitals was given by the American pianist Andrew Tyson at ‘The Seed’, the concert hall attached to the Sakıp Sabancı Museum in Emirgan, on Friday 15...
View ArticleMusical Shares: Flying fingers at the Seed
The latest in the 2018–19 series of İstanbul Recitals was given by the American pianist Andrew Tyson at the Seed, the concert hall attached to the Sakıp Sabancı Museum in Emirgan, on Friday February...
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Crimea photos at the Queen’s Gallery
These photograph of Ottoman commanders (Ismael Pasha receiving his chibouque, left, and Ömer Pasha, right) are from 360 taken by Roger Fenton in Crimea and now on show at the Queen’s Gallery,...
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John Freely is the favourite
The top sellers on the latest list from Cornucopia Bookshop sees John Freely’s Stamboul Ghosts: A Stroll through Bohemian Istanbul way out in front. This is unsurprising, as Freely was such a popular...
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