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A taste of spring in Beyoğlu
Beyoglu's galleries are open and on a sunny Saturday I filed through the unexpected crowds to see what was up. The whole city seemed to be out. High above Mumhane Caddesi, a colourful dome of one of...
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Magnificent flying lots
Süleyman the Magnificent would, I am sure, be chuffed. The 'Lawgiver' (Lot 58) quadrupled his estimate at the Sotheby's Islamic sale last week, selling for £430,000. We would dearly love to know the...
View ArticleScreen Test: Aestheticising the World of Data
Refik Anadol, whose new show, Machine Memories: Space, recently opened at Pilevneli Gallery in Dolapdere, is probably Turkey’s best known digital artist. A lecturer and visiting fellow at UCLA in Los...
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Through Greek eyes
The greek orthodox Easter falls late this year, May 2nd, the Sunday after the full moon and I'd like to celebrate with photographs from the book, The Rum-Orthodox Schools of Istanbul by Paris Petridis...
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Happily bingeing on kitsch
Kitsch has a troubled history. The term was initially coined as a response to the proliferation of art forms concurrent with the industrial revolution, and the awareness that mechanical reproduction...
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Happily bingeing on kitsch
Kitsch has a troubled history. The term was initially coined as a response to the proliferation of art forms concurrent with the industrial revolution, and the awareness that mechanical reproduction...
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Fact or friction: all questions asked
The second edition of SALT Galata’s ongoing series of exhibitions, “The Sequential”, sees the institution play host to interventions by the conceptual artist Deniz Gül. In “Scratch and Surface”, Gül’s...
View ArticleGood reverberations
It is too long since I heard USA-based Turkish jazz pianist Aydın Esen play live. I can still recall the chromatic crunchiness of his chords: at that concert in Istanbul in July 2019 (described in my...
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Stairways of Istanbul
There is an infinity of magical stairways in this city; here are three of my favourites. Internal staircase to the church. Exterior of the building in the back streets of Karakoy. These fine marble...
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On the occasion of Easter
In celebration of the Greek Orthodox Easter, which falls late this year on May 2nd, one week after that spectacular full moon, I would like to share some lesser known locations from the Istanbul...
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Gold dust
This year the Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year Awards in the UK attracted no fewer than 10,500 photographers from 70 different countries the world over. The winner of the Bring Home the Harvest...
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Easter in aspic
To mark the Orthodox Easter, which falls this weekend, a week after that spectacular pink full moon, and a full month after the Western churches celebrated the day, I would like to share some striking...
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An Easter church hunt
To mark the Orthodox Easter, which falls this weekend, a week after that spectacular pink full moon, and a full month after the Western churches celebrated the day, I would like to share some images...
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Lithian Ricci’s whimsical project
Lithian Ricci, an established artist from Rome first joined Istanbul's art scene in 2013, exhibiting her work at the Maçka Modern Gallery in Nisantasi. Ricci fell in love with the city and was driven...
View ArticleTrailblazers of the Twentieth Century
On Sunday, March 21, a concert by players from the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra, originally recorded in January, was streamed online. Under the baton of Cem’i Can Deliorman, conductor of...
View ArticleMan of the moment
‘423 Days After Shutdown, New York Takes Big Step Toward Full Reopening’, was the headline in The New York Times, but there was no need to read the article. I had already understood the relief of...
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Family matters
On Friday July 5, 2019, as long-time readers of this blog may remember, I attended a concert at the UNIQ concert hall in which USA-based Turkish jazz pianist Aydın Esen performed with a singer whom he...
View ArticleOur strange present and near future
The artist Emre Hüner began working on his show at Arter [ELEKTROİZOLASYON]: Exo-Settlement Recorded on Cratered Glazes in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic, and when the museum itself was not yet...
View ArticleOn the Shores of Gallipoli
Much is written about the terrible Anzac losses at Gallipoli, where, as William Guerney wrote in Cornucopia 20, Australia and New Zealand ‘forged new national identies independent of the mother...
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Portrait of a house in Sanaa
Nestled in the back streets of Sanaa's Turkish quarter is Marco Livadiotti's stunning home, a homage to Yemen's beauty by an Italian aesthetic. Hard to believe almost 30 years have passed since I've...
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