Artist Asli Torcu @ Pi Artworks Istanbul - "Touched by Image" Exhibition

Asli Torcu

Touched by Image

Pi Artworks Istanbul

15 March – 3 May 2025

" Each photograph contains a riddle, and the human gaze

directed towards it reveals this riddle, which is

the echo of its own questioning.’’

-Michel Frizot

ASLI TORCU

Evcilik Oyunu, 2019

Mixed media on geotextile, 100-x-150-cm

© Aslı Torcu / Courtesy of Pi Artworks

Pi Artworks Istanbul is pleased to present Touched by Image, a solo exhibition by ASLI TORCU. In this exhibition, the artist presents works that explore the disappearance and rebirth of images in uncertainty.

Touched by Image is a space of discovery that exposes the fragile nature of time and memory. The paintings are made in layers, carrying traces from the past into the present, reflecting the paradoxes of memory and time. With their multilayered surfaces—sometimes erased, sometimes re-emerging—these works reveal an evolutionary process informed by uncertainty and the inevitability of change.

"Like the primordial chaos in which all elements are mixed together," (Ovidius, " Metamorphoses ") past, present, and future intertwine on the artist’s canvases, evolving into new meanings. The paintings encourage the viewer to confront the images that undoubtedly exist within themselves and to question the riddles and triggers they provoke. However, there is no definite solution to this conundrum; the past remains an uncertain space, constantly reconstructed through the spontaneity of images from the present. 

As well as documenting lost images, the paintings also engage with themes of childhood and discovery. In one painting, two children are attempting to discover treasures. This symbolizes the joy of human curiosity and the necessity of reflection in survival itself. However, this discovery does not only reference the past; it also offers the possibility of evolution and future understanding. These moments, suspended in a timeless void, are reshaped in the traces of the past and continue to exist in constant transformation.

William James' concept of “touch-images” offers an important key to the way these works are experienced. According to James, some images are not limited to visual perception; they can sometimes trigger a bodily response and evoke a physical resonance in the viewer. In the artist's works, colours, textures and forms speak to the viewer not only through the gaze, but also with an intuitive and tactile intensity. ‘Touched by Image’ functions as a laboratory that questions the concepts of memory and time, while offering a space for reflection on the existence of images. The exhibition invites the viewer to confront their own past, lost images and their echoes today. Each painting exists as a puzzle, a call and an endeavour to remember in the midst of uncertainty. However, rather than reaching a definitive conclusion, this endeavour is experienced as a process open to wandering between images, getting lost and reappearing.  

ASLI TORCU (b. 1981, Turkey)

Aslı Torcu has been living and working in Paris, France. After graduating from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Department of Painting, she continued her education in France and completed her PhD at Paris VIII University, where she also taught. She is currently working as a lecturer at the École Supérieure d'Art de Dunkerque-Tourcoing.

Her practice is closely related to the subject of memory and is inspired by archive images. Her practice, which is figurative in essence, emerges from a search for an atmosphere of colour based on pictorial abstraction.                             

PI ARTWORKS ISTANBUL

Piyalepasa Istanbul, 32 B Piyalepaşa Bulvarı, Istanbul

www.piartworks.com

Modernisms @ Grey Art Gallery, NYU - Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYU’s Abby Weed Grey Collection

Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYU’s Abby Weed Grey Collection 
Grey Art Gallery, New York University
September 10 – December 7, 2019

Parviz Tanavoli (Iranian)

Heech, 1972

Bronze on wood base, 22 1/4 x 12 x 8 in.

Grey Art Gallery, New York University Art Collection 

Gift of Abby Weed Grey, G1975.54

© Parviz Tanavoli

Courtesy of the Grey Art Gallery / NYU

Drawing on its remarkable collection of modern Iranian, Indian, and Turkish art, the Grey Art Gallery at New York University presents Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYU’s Abby Weed Grey Collection. Featuring approximately thirty to forty artworks from each country, the exhibition examines the artistic practices in Iran, Turkey, and India, from the 1960s and early ’70s via selections from the Abby Weed Grey Collection of Modern Asian and Middle Eastern Art. The first major museum exhibition to bring together modern works from these nations, Modernisms sheds new light on how the featured artists created works that drew on their specific heritages while also engaging in global discourses around key issues of modernity. Assembled by Lynn Gumpert, Director of the Grey Art Gallery, this exhibition illuminates our understanding of modern art created outside of the West.

Of the nearly 4,800 works housed at the Grey Art Gallery, New York University’s fine arts museum, approximately 700 comprise the Abby Weed Grey Collection of Modern Asian and Middle Eastern Art. This collection—an unparalleled and unique art historical resource—represents some of the largest institutional holdings of Iranian and Turkish modern art, and the foremost trove of modern Indian art in an American university museum. Along with an endowment to establish the Grey Art Gallery, the collection was donated to New York University in 1975 by Abby Weed Grey, a self-described “dyed-in-the-wool Midwesterner” from St. Paul, Minnesota. In the 1960s and early ’70s, when few other American collectors were attuned to art being made in the Middle East and Asia, Mrs. Grey traveled extensively in these regions, steadily acquiring works by contemporary local artists. Intent on self-education and optimistically embracing the notion of “one world through art,” she believed firmly in the power of art to stimulate dialogues between people of different cultures. This vision arose at a moment when, due to the shifting dynamics of the Cold War, America held a broader interest in fostering intercultural dialogue that was motivated, in part, by foreign policy strategy.

“The time seems right to reexamine Mrs. Grey’s trailblazing efforts toward cultural exchange,” notes Gumpert. “These artworks represent a wide range of responses to unique, regional histories and to a rapidly changing modern world. Combining them in one exhibition allows viewers to understand how artists of various nationalities melded local traditions with international trends and, in so doing, identifies global art as a central component of modernity.”

Although works from the collection have been shown at the Grey on numerous previous occasions—in exhibitions such as Global Local 1960–2015: Six Artists from Iran (2016), Abby Grey and Indian Modernism: Selections from the NYU Art Collection (2015), Modern Iranian Art (2013), and Between Word and Image: Modern Iranian Visual Culture (2002)—selections from the Iranian, Turkish, and Indian modern art holdings have never been presented together in a cross-cultural study. Bringing together works from three different countries, Modernisms makes significant contributions to current dialogues which are actively seeking to expand narrow, Eurocentric narratives of modern art.

IRAN

Comprising nearly 200 works, the Grey Art Gallery’s holdings of modern Iranian art constitute the largest component of Abby Grey’s collection. In 1960, as part of her around-the-world tour, Mrs. Grey visited Iran, where she attended the Second Tehran Biennial. The Iran she encountered was rich with creativity and intellectual discourse. Ali Mirsepassi and Hamed Yousefi note in an essay in the exhibition’s publication that “Iranian intellectuals and artists participated in various movements and experiments as they sought to craft diverse modern, secular, and radical visions for the nation.” Captivated by what she saw, Mrs. Grey subsequently made seven additional visits to Iran, seeking art that would “express the response of a contemporary sensibility to contemporary circumstances.” She found this innovation in work by members of the Saqqakhaneh school, such as Parviz Tanavoli, Faramarz Pilaram, Charles-Hossein Zenderoudi, and their peers. These artists sought to reinterpret Iran’s rich traditions of calligraphy, architecture, and ornamentation in contemporary idioms. For instance, Tanavoli rooted much of his work in Iranian folklore, but developed a new pictorial language to recast traditional stories as modern sculptures. Pilaram drew on the awe-inspiring architectural components of the mosques of Isfahan, the city of his birth, but merged them with bodily fragments to create hybrid designs. Zenderoudi referenced Shiite iconography and Persian calligraphy in his oeuvre but transformed them into abstract, flowing forms. “The major departure from earlier modernist works,” explains scholar Fereshteh Daftari, “lay not only in the representation of indigenous subject matter but also in the expression of a vernacular culture with its own visual means and lexicon.” Despite the primacy of Saqqakhaneh works in the Grey collection, Mrs. Grey also acquired works by other Iranian artists, such as Siah Armajani, who emigrated to Minnesota in 1960, and whose works in the collection are informed by depictions of language and the pictorial relationship between word and image. Also included in the Grey collection is a floral monotype by Monir Farmanfarmaian, who spent most of her career in New York (where she learned printmaking techniques from Milton Avery), and is best known for her mirrored works that recall Iranian mosaics. Like the Saqqakhaneh school, these artists grappled with questions of how to reconcile their contemporary sensibilities with their Persian heritage.

Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu (Turkish)

Full Moon, 1961

Oil and glue on canvas, 50 7/8 x 42 in.

Grey Art Gallery, New York University Art Collection 

Gift of Abby Weed Grey, G1975.293

Courtesy of the Grey Art Gallery / NYU

TURKEY

Mrs. Grey made her first visit to Turkey in 1961, inaugurating a lifelong fascination with Turkish modernism. By the end of that year, she had begun collecting Turkish works with the intention of exhibiting them in the United States. Abby Grey returned to Turkey three more times—in 1964, 1965, and 1969—to visit the studios and salons of the country’s rising vanguard artists, ultimately purchasing nearly 110 works. While there, she met many Group D artists, including Abindin Eldergolu and Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu, two among a veritable roster of Istanbul’s modernist visionaries who sought to cast off earlier styles and aesthetics—such as Impressionism and Western academic styles—in favor of art representing a new Turkey, one that would embody both Turkish consciousness and international awareness. In his quest to create a uniquely Turkish modernism, Eldergolu looked to the native abstract art of calligraphy, thus foregrounding conceptual connections between local Turkish artistic forms and international modernist abstract art. Eyüboğlu looked for inspiration to Turkey’s rich pastoral life, often portraying farms and peasant activities. Other Turkish artists of this time, such as Nevzat Akoral, depicted scenes of village life and labor through the lens of Turkey’s many urban migrants. In contrast, Fahrelnissa Zeid looked to another kind of Turkish heritage—the geometric and curvilinear forms of Turkish ornamentation and architecture—which she incorporated into her often recondite images. “The mythos of the rural that was so central to 20th-century Turkish art,” writes Sarah-Neel Smith, “contrasts with works in Grey’s collection that speak to processes of migration and urbanization, which began in the 1950s and reached a fever pitch in the 1960s.” The multitude of styles found in the Grey Art Gallery’s Turkish collection reflects the great diversity of expression that constitutes Turkey’s modernist scene.

Maqbool Fida Husain (Indian)

Virgin Night, 1964

Oil on canvas, 39 3/4 x 29 1/2 in.

Grey Art Gallery, New York University Art Collection

Gift of Abby Weed Grey, G1975.158

Courtesy of the Grey Art Gallery / NYU

INDIA

Strongly drawn to the innovations she found in India, Abby Grey traveled there four times during the 1960s. She collected some 80 artworks, comprising what scholar Ranjit Hoskote calls a “unique group of works [that] embraces the diversity of artistic explorations, cultural alignments, and ideological perspectives that animated the Indian art scene as it unfolded between the 1940s and 1960s.” In New Delhi and Mumbai (Bombay), Mrs. Grey encountered artists who, in the wake of their country’s independence from British rule, began experimenting with new approaches, forming the nation’s first modernist schools. Several works she acquired were by members of the influential Progressive Artists Group (PAG), which broke away from the traditional Indian nationalist art movement to form an avant-garde collective that looked outward to other cultures and drew inspiration from abroad. Clearly embracing cultural hybridity, Maqbool Fida Husain blended cubism and expressionism with traditional Indian iconography to create his own vocabulary of darkly expressive forms. Francis Newton Souza, founder of PAG, often combined deconstructed human forms with Hindu iconography, merging outside influences with local religious imagery. Mrs. Grey also collected works by some of the more experimental artists working in India who have been overlooked in the West until now, but who were also seeking ways to incorporate modern techniques. One such artist, Prabhakar Barwe, combined Tantric styles culled from his time spent in Varanasi, India’s holiest city, with abstract symbolism largely inspired by the work of Paul Klee. Ultimately, Mrs. Grey’s keen eye and passion resulted in a collection of Indian art that highlights and celebrates a complex but often heretofore disregarded modernism. 

Exhibition Catalogue

Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYU’s Abby Weed Grey Collection is accompanied by a 288-page catalogue. Co-published by Hirmer Publishers and the Grey Art Gallery, New York University, the book features a roundtable discussion that considers the political and cultural landscapes of Iran, Turkey, and India during the time that Abby Grey was traveling and collecting art. Moderated by Lynn Gumpert, Director of the Grey Art Gallery at New York University, the roundtable includes Vishakha N. Desai, Senior Adviser for Global Affairs to the President of Columbia University, Vice Chair of the Committee on Global Thought, and Senior Research Scholar in Global Studies at the School of International and Public Affairs; Vasif Kortun, curator, writer, educator, and former Director of Research and Programs at SALT; and Hamed Yousefi, a filmmaker and PhD student in art history at Northwestern University. Also featured is a conversation in remembrance of Abby Weed Grey between Robert R. Littman, President of the Vergel Foundation and former Director of the Grey Art Gallery, and Michèle Wong, Associate Director and Head of Collections and Exhibitions at the Grey Art Gallery.

The book includes essays by Lynn Gumpert; Shiva Balaghi, Senior Adviser to the Provost and President of the American University in Cairo for the Arts and Cultural Programs; curator and scholar Fereshteh Daftari; Ali Mirsepassi, Albert Gallatin Research Excellence Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study and in the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Science at NYU, and Hamed Yousefi; Sarah-Neel Smith, Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the Maryland Institute College of Art; Susan Hapgood, an art historian and Executive Director of the International Studio and Curatorial Program in Brooklyn; and Ranjit Hoskote, a cultural theorist, curator, and poet. The book also includes catalogue entries by Duygu Demir, PhD candidate at MIT; Ilhan Ozan, PhD student at the University of Pittsburgh; Ally Mintz, Exhibitions and Publications Manager at the Grey Art Gallery; and Rashmi Meenakshi Viswanathan, a Postdoctoral Fellow of Global Contemporary Art at Parsons School of Design, The New School.

Tour

After debuting at the Grey Art Gallery at New York University, Modernisms will be on view at the Block Art Museum at Northwestern University from January 21 through April 5, 2020. The exhibition will travel to the New York University Abu Dhabi Art Gallery in fall 2020.

GREY ART GALLERY, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY 
100 Washington Square East, New York, NY 10003
greyartgallery.nyu.edu

Davide Balliano @ Dirimart, Istanbul - Culebra

Davide Balliano: Culebra
Dirimart, Istanbul
Through 14 July 2019

DADIDE BALLIANO

UNTITLED_0144, 2019

Plaster, gesso and lacquer on wood

152.4 x 152.4 cm

© Davide Balliano ; Courtesy of the artist and Dirimart, Istanbul

Dirimart presents Culebra, an exhibition of recent paintings of New York-based artist Davide Balliano. The show marks the artist’s first solo presentation of his work in Istanbul.

Davide Balliano’s austere research operates on a cosmos of calculated shapes, halved arches and spirals, bearing traces of baroque and modernist architecture. Sourcing from detailed geometrical constructions, his paintings in plaster and gesso on wood, evolve through progressive alterations, erosions, and weathering of the surface, carrying the work to the third dimension on the verge of sculpture. The result is a constellation of dynamic compositions, mapping the complex system that surrounds and contains us, or at least the artist’s sketch of his impression of it.

However, recently, Davide Balliano’s attention shifted inwards, focusing on the dynamics that regulate our nature and identity as humans, both in the historical context of our time and in relation to the surrounding universe. A perceptive illusion is introduced to its vocabulary: vibrating motion of wavy torrents, resembling the sinuous line of a heartbeat, the hypnotic drafting of a seismograph or the truth revealing echoes of a polygraph test.

In the body of work exhibited at the show, a kind of duality imposes itself on the viewers. A harmony of opposites, a contrasted equilibrium between the machine-like perfection of geometry and the guttural violence of scarred surface. The duality can also be characterized as a staring contest between the surgical coldness of the architectural elements, and the organic warmth of dripping and melting; a dialogue between the rationality of social dynamics and the subconscious demands of our erotic or violent impulses.

The title of the exhibition is borrowed from Curzio Malaparte’s controversial novel Kaputt. There culebra, Spanish for “serpent,” is a magic word capable of summoning ghosts but also a sensual and seductive one, containing both the fear and fascination for mysteries of the unknown: “If my memory does not fail me,” pursued Westmann with a cruel smile, “Anthony calls Cleopatra…” “For God’s sake, be silent!” shouted de Foxa. “Don’t speak that word aloud. It is a terrible word that must be spoken thus in a low voice…” and scarcely moving his lips, he whispered, “Culebra. Mi culebra del antiguo Nilo.”

Davide Balliano (b. 1983, Turin) studied photography at the C.F.P Riccardo Bauer, Milan. Known for his layered minimal work that straddles the line between painting and sculpture, Balliano has exhibited extensively internationally, including solo exhibitions at Tina Kim Gallery, New York (2019 & 2017); 39 Great Jones, New York (2018); Luce Gallery, Turin (2017 & 2015); Timothy Taylor Gallery, London (2015); Room East, New York (2014); Rolando Anselmi Galerie, Berlin (2014 & 2012); Galerie Michael Rein, Paris (2013); Location One, New York (2011); The Artists Space, New York (2009). His group exhibitions include David Zwirner Gallery, New York (2015); Sean Kelly Gallery, New York (2014 & 2010); Madre Museum, Naples (2012); The Watermill Center, New York (2011 & 2009); MoMA PS1, New York (2010); Espai d’Art Contemporani de Castelló, Castellón, (2010). Davide Balliano lives and works in New York.

DIRIMART
Hacıahmet Mahallesi. Irmak Cad. 1-9, Dolapdere, 34440, İstanbul
dirimart.com

Fahrelnissa Zeid @ Istanbul Modern

Fahrelnissa Zeid
Istanbul Modern
May 30 - July 30, 2017

Istanbul Modern presents a selection from its comprehensive collection of works by Fahrelnissa Zeid, a pioneer of modern art in Turkey and one of the first exponents of abstract art.

 Eleven years after “Two Generations of the Rainbow”, Istanbul Modern’s retrospective of  Fahrelnissa Zeid together with her son Nejad Melih Devrim, Istanbul Modern revisits  its collection of Fahrelnissa Zeid for a special selection in its Pop-Up Exhibition Area.

The exhibition features 23 artworks, not only abstract geometric compositions in which the artist excelled, but also expressionist paintings that merge her unique color palette with references to Byzantine, Islamic, and Western art.

The selection focuses on Fahrelnissa Zeid’s most prolific years between the 1940s, that marks her introduction to the art scene in Turkey, and the 1970s, when she moved to Amman, Jordan.

The global art world’s revived interest in Fahrelnissa Zeid has led to a flurry of her works in 2017, including group shows in Haus der Kunst in Munich and GAM di Torino. This year, 8 works from the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art Collection that are among the most important in Zeid’s career will be on view in London, Berlin, and Beirut, starting with her retrospective at Tate Modern as of June the 13th.

Oya Eczacıbaşı: Our first donation, which made a dream come true

Oya Eczacıbaşı, Chair of the Board of Istanbul Modern, explained the special significance of Fahrelnissa Zeid to Istanbul Modern as well as in Turkey’s modern art: “When Istanbul Modern was still just an idea, the family of Turkey’s world-renowned artist Fahrelnissa Zeid made a gift of her masterpiece ‘My Hell’ to the museum we dreamed of opening one day. The moment Istanbul Modern was founded, the first work to enter the museum was this one. With Zeid’s increased visibility in the global art world, we wanted to bring the artist’s works together again after 11 years and introduce them to new generations.”

Levent Çalıkoğlu: “Zeid’s position in the global art world is secured”

Noting that 2017 is the year of Zeid in the global art world, Istanbul Modern Director Levent Çalıkoğlu added: “Without a doubt Fahrelnissa Zeid’s life story, character and approach to art make her one of the most creative artists of her generation and epoch. The belated interest of Western museums and art community in Zeid’s person and works, which is clearly evident in this year’s international exhibition calendar, is restoring her the value she deserves. In particular, the retrospective that Tate Modern is organizing will secure Zeid’s position in the global art world. Since we have a comprehensive collection of Zeid’s work, we are also supporting this global interest with this selection.”

FAHRELNISSA ZEID (1901-1991)

Fahrelnissa Zeid was born on Büyükada in 1901 during the Ottoman era as the niece of Grand Vizier Cevat Paşa. She came from a large family of artists that included author Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı and painter Aliye Berger, her siblings. Her children from her marriage with author İzzet Melih Devrim were the painter Nejad Melih Devrim and the director and theater actress Şirin Devrim. Zeid was also the aunt of ceramic artist Füreya Koral.

One of the first female graduates of the Sanayi-i Nefise (Academy of Fine Arts), Fahrelnissa Zeid continued her studies in painting in the studio of Stalbach at the Académie Ranson in Paris, and later in the studio of Namık İsmail in Istanbul. In 1934, she married Prince Zeid, the ambassador of Iraq in Ankara, and became a princess. In 1942, she joined the Group D and took part in their exhibitions.

After her first solo exhibition held in her home in Maçka in 1944, Fahrelnissa Zeid had her works exhibited in Paris, London, New York, Brussels, and other cities where the couple lived after World War II. In 1976, Fahrelnissa Zeid moved permanently to Amman, where she established an institute of arts bearing her name and which she supported throughout her remaining years while continuing to produce art. She died in 1991 in Amman.

Known for her exuberant, powerful compositions, Fahrelnissa Zeid has a unique visual language so vivid and rich that it cannot be reduced to a single style. Her artistic practice can be classified under the following periods: an early period of figurative compositions with spaces constructed according to the style of miniatures; a period of maturity with geometrical and freely abstractionist works reminiscent of stained glass surfaces; and a late period consisting mainly of portraits in which psychological narrative comes to the fore.

ISTANBUL MODERN
www.instanbulmodern.org

Inci Eviner Retrospective @ Istanbul Modern, Turkey

Inci Eviner Retrospective
Who's Inside You?
Istanbul Modern
Through 23 octobre 2016

Istanbul Modern brings together İnci Eviner’s creative process from the 1980s to the present with the retrospective “Who’s Inside You?” The İnci Eviner Retrospective reflects the development and transformation of the artist’s rich search for expression, which extends from drawing, painting, and video to installation, photography, and sculpture.

İnci Eviner is a pioneering artist who has been influential in the transformation of contemporary art in Turkey. The exhibition “Who’s Inside You?” features works she has produced over the course of nearly forty years, providing a glance not only into her rich world of imagery, but also into the changing social and political realities of the times in which the works were produced.

Eviner has developed a unique mode of expression regarding womanhood, gender, and the politics of identity in their collective, political, and sociocultural aspects. The exhibition is not presented in a strictly chronological order, but rather interweaves past and present, and even incorporates the exhibition space itself.

The press conference held at Istanbul Modern on the occasion of the exhibition’s opening was attended by the artist İnci Eviner, Chair of the Board of Istanbul Modern Oya Eczacıbaşı, Chair of Ferko Ferit Meriçten, and Istanbul Modern Director Levent Çalıkoğlu, who is also the exhibition’s curator.

İnci Eviner: I designed the exhibition in an entirely open-plan setting

Indicating that the exhibition “Who’s Inside Me?” was conceivedas a unified, immersive installation, İnci Eviner said: “This exhibition enabled me to look back. Not only did it give me the opportunity to look from a certain distance at my own story in terms of how my identity as an artist became established, but it also revealed how all of the works are linked in certain ways. I designed the presentation in an entirely open-plan setting. I wanted to create a dynamic environment that would not be presented chronologically, but would bring back into circulation visual languages that reference one another, speak to one another, and are informed by the same past although they were articulated in different ways at different times.”

Noting that the works are marked by the passage of time, Eviner added that, because she wanted to restage her works, she arranged them as if she were creating a new piece. Eviner said: “We proceeded section by section, using the accompanying texts I wrote for the series that I had done until then, and worked up a design that allows viewers to perceive the entire area as a single picture from the moment they enter the exhibition space.”

Oya Eczacıbaşı: We want to enhance the visibility of women artists in Turkey

Chair of the Board of Istanbul Modern Oya Eczacıbaşı stated that the museum continues to hold exhibitions that highlight the pioneering and critical approaches of women artists to modern and contemporary art. Eczacıbaşı said: “We are pleased to host the exhibition ‘Who’s Inside You?,’ a comprehensive retrospective of İnci Eviner, one of Turkey’s leading contemporary artists. Istanbul Modern held its first retrospective of a woman artist in 2006, when ‘Two Generations of a Rainbow’ featured a vast range of work by Fahrelnissa Zeid, a pioneer of modern art in Turkey, and by her son Nejad Melih Devrim. Five years later, we organized ‘Dream and Reality,’ an exhibition examining Turkey’s social and cultural transformation from the beginning of its modernization process to the present through the works of women artists.”

Eczacıbaşı continued: “There are several reasons why we are excited to hold this retrospective of İnci Eviner. To begin with, it is our first retrospective of a living woman artist. We believe that this approach will have an influence on many aspects of Turkey’s artistic and cultural life. Also exciting is that this retrospective marks the start of the Women Artists Fund, a new Istanbul Modern initiative to increase the output of women in the field of contemporary art and enhance their visibility in Turkey and abroad. The Women Artists Fund brings together collectors and sponsors who are concerned about art and women’s issues, and dedicated to increasing the stature and visibility of women producing art and culture in Turkey. The initiative aims to promote living women artists by expanding Istanbul Modern’s collection of new works by women and supporting the projects of women whose works have been exhibited at our museum.”

Ferit Meriçten: We create living spaces that are long-lasting, like works of art

Chair of Ferko Ferit Meriçten called attention to the high-quality, exclusive projects they deliver in Turkey and abroad, and emphasized how sustainability affects all areas of human life. Meriçten said: “Ferko has been part of the business world for twenty-five years. We are here with you today thanks to our passion for art, which is ingrained in our corporate genes. As a brand that, while expanding its business, shows sensitivity to the dynamics of the environment in which we live, we are delighted to be involved with art. When designing buildings or spaces, Ferko strives to create living environments that are inspiring, add value to people’s lives, and are long-lasting like works of art. Like art masters, we dedicate meticulous care to every detail. The most important mission of our industry is to build livable cities and include all relevant aspects when developing living spaces, from architecture to cultural structure. It is of great value to us that we, as Ferko, operate from this perspective in every project we undertake. Embracing this awareness, Ferko will continue to support the arts in the future as it does today.”

Levent Çalıkoğlu: One of the most creative and contemporary artists of her generation

The exhibition’s curator, Istanbul Modern Director Levent Çalıkoğlu, stated that in terms of the diversity of her areas of interest and research, İnci Eviner is one of the most creative and contemporary artists of her generation. Çalıkoğlu added: “The exhibition brings together an inventory that spans close to forty years and reveals the rich and profound connections Eviner establishes both within herself and with the unity of art, culture, nature, and the unconscious that makes us human. In all of her works, Eviner transforms this unity and makes it her own through a unique repertoire of images that renders her presence distinctly visible. Like all great artists, she uses ‘potentials’ that at first glance are believed not to belong to the field of art and, through a natural touch, makes them her own. She thus enables us to think and interpret them from a new imaginative perspective.”

It all began with line and drawing

Drawing is central to Eviner’s works; she defines the starting point of her practice as expressions made through lines on paper. She constantly enriches her artistic approach, strolling through a boundless visual language ranging from art historical allegories, iconographies, illustrations, and mythologies to contemporary ideograms and pictograms.

Timeless works

Weaving together the violence at the heart of the beautiful, the potential of the repressed, and the unmatched creativity of the unconscious, Eviner’s works are simultaneously contemporary and timeless. The artist investigates the historical, discursive, and unconscious processes that influence our views of female identity starting in childhood. By defining womanhood as a field of limitless possibility that does not fit into a single image, the artist challenges the representational forms typically deemed appropriate for women and the restrictions that led to the emergence of these representations.

The retrospective "Who’s Inside You?” provides opportunities to see, for the first time ever, several works the artist created following her graduation from the Academy that could not be exhibited at the time due to physical and political conditions. Also featured in the exhibition are very recent works, produced this year.

Sponsored by Ferko, a firm notable for delivering quality and exclusive projects both in Turkey and abroad, the exhibition is on view in Istanbul Modern’s temporary exhibition hall through October 23, 2016.

About İnci Eviner

İnci Eviner has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions around the world as well as the biennials in Istanbul, Venice, Taiwan, Thessaloniki, Shanghai, andPusan. Her works have been shown at the Drawing Center, New York; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna; the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; and Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille, France. Eviner was born in 1956 in Ankara and lives and works in Istanbul.

Exhibition catalogue

Published bilingually in Turkish and English, the exhibition catalogue includes texts about and images of the works in the exhibition, an essay by Levent Çalıkoğlu on the conceptual framework of the exhibition, Sara Raza’s essay “İnci Eviner: On the Practice and Performance of Drawing,” and Rana Öztürk’s interview with the artist entitled “Choreography of Flowing Images.”

In addition to the exhibition catalogue, the Istanbul Modern Store also features a selection of designers’ products.

ISTANBUL MODERN
www.istanbulmodern.org

New Art Fair in Istanbul, Turkey, 2013

All Arts Istanbul, New Art Fair in Turkey

A brand new art fair was founded in Istanbul, Turkey: ALL ARTS ISTANBUL that will take place for the first time from 18 to 21 April 2013 at the Istanbul Convention Center in Harbiye, Taşkışla Street. The new Turkish art fair will offer art enthusiasts a wide array of works, ranging from Turkish and Ottoman traditional arts to antiques, from modern to contemporary art. In addition to a variety of artworks from Turkey, Middle East and North Africa, antiques and contemporary art will be presented side by side by galleries, art institutions and auction houses in addition to second-hand booksellers, artisans, craftsmen and antique dealers. With a comprehensive approach to art, All Arts Istanbul aims to serve as the nexus point in Turkey for people and institutions who invest in art and art objects. The fair will offer participants many programs to choose from, including visits to artist's studios, guided tours of museums and private collections, seminars, conferences and workshops.

Group photograph of All Arts Istambul's Advisory Board

The Advisory Board for All Arts Istanbul was created with key figures from the art world and member from the organizations sponsoring the new Turkish art fair. 

All Arts Istanbul Advisory Board Meeting, 10th December 2012

The first comprehensive meeting of the fair took place last december, and the names of the members of  the Advisory Board are as follows:

Prof. Dr. Nurhan Atasoy, Turkish Cultural Foundation

Beşir Ayvazoğlu, Zaman, Columnist

Beyhan Bağış, Anatoli, Chairman

Doç. Dr. Emin Mahir Balcıoğlu, Qatar Museums Authority, Project Director

Faruk Bayrak, Everest Publishing, Chairman

Ahmet Benli, Galérie Benli

Tayfun Demirören, Demirören Holding, Executive Board Member

Uğur Derman, Türk Petrol Foundation, Executive Board Member

Haldun Dostoğlu, Galeri Nev

Doç. Dr. Ahmet Halûk Dursun, Topkapı Palace, Museum Director

Levent Erden, Havas World Wide Turkey, CEO

Dr. M. Sinan Genim, Architect

Remzi Gür, Gürmen Group, Chairman

Ali Güreli, All Arts Istanbul, Chairman

Prof. Dr. Gül İrepoğlu, Art Historian, Architect

Prof. Dr. Mustafa İsen, General Secretary of the Presidency

Yusuf İyilik, Yön Group, Chairman

Prof. Dr. Hasan Bülent Kahraman, All Arts Istanbul, General Coordinator

Prof. Dr. Hüsamettin Koçan, Baksı Museum, Founder

Fehmi Koru, Star, Columnist

Doç. Dr. Nazan Ölçer, Sakıp Sabancı Museum, Director

Ömer Faruk Şerifoğlu, Advisor to the Private Collection of the Presidency

Jale Tantekin, Tantekin Antiques

Cumhur Güven Taşbaşı, The Director General for Promotion of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism

Doç. Dr. Gülname Turan, Istanbul Technical University, Faculty Member

Necla Zarakol, Zarakol Communication, Chairman

ALI GURELI

Ali Güreli, the President of the Board of All Arts Istanbul said: '' Istanbul is becoming one of the most important contemporary art centers in the world, and the Biennial as well as the Contemporary Istanbul Art Fair, which has taken place for the 7th time in 2012, are strong contributors of this development.'' He also called attention to the private sector’s piqued interest in art, saying “Interesting and important exhibitions took place in Istanbul in recent years, the likes of which had never been executed in Turkey before. After developing its contemporary art scene, Istanbul will expand its cultural, economic and touristic boundaries further with ''All Arts Istanbul Fair''. Intense interest in the traditional arts, the need for investment in art as a tool of of modernization, today is quite tangible in these fields even beyond the known names. All Arts Istanbul will contribute greatly to the city, culture and art.”

HASAN BULENT KAHRAMAN

General Coordinator of All Arts Istanbul, Prof. Dr. Hasan Bülent Kahraman also said: "All Arts Istanbul will create a platform for traditional, exemplary art works that are produced in Turkey, that are neither marketed nor promoted to the fullest outside the scope of auctions and some limited networks. Collectors who have so far presented their accumulations only in auctions, will be given a chance to present, promote and if the occasion arises, sell their valuable objects, and the fair will create an opportunity to enrich and transform existing collections. The fair will be a platform where buyers and sellers will be able to come together in a highly contemporary  setting and an attractive setup."

Website: www.allartsistanbul.com

Abstraction at Istanbul Biennial 2011

Istanbul Biennial Group Exhibition: Untitled (Abstraction)  Lygia Clark, Charlotte Posenenske, Theo Craveiro, Cevdet Erek, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige

The exhibition Untitled (Abstraction) is inspired by Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s “Untitled” (Bloodwork—Steady Decline) (1994). This minimalist piece, a drawing of a grid with a diagonal line reaching from the top-left corner to the lower-right corner, represents the gradually failing immune system of a patient with HIV. This group exhibition gathers works that subvert pure abstraction and the high-modernist grid by bringing in political and bodily themes.

LYGIA CLARK

Crab Beast (Bicho Caranguejo), 1960

Aluminum

30 x 16 x 1 cm

Courtesy the Cultural Association “The World of Lygia Clark”

Photograph: Nuno Franco de Souza

In her proposals, the Brazilian artist LYGIA CLARK (Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 1920-1988, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) anticipated the Untitled (Abstraction) theme. The sculpture series Bicho (Beast) made with hinged sheets of aluminum, which Lygia Clark began to work on in 1959, strongly exhibits the artist’s anxiety toward form and her radical views on the social role of art. The Bicho (Beast) that is presented in the Istanbul Biennial create a multisensory experience, turning the viewer into an active participant.

CHARLOTTE POSENENSKE

Square tubes, from the series DW, 1986

Corrugated cardboard

152 x 107 x 30 cm

Central Station Frankfurt a.M. 1989 

Courtesy estate (Burkhard Brunn) 

Photography: Burkhard Brunn

In close proximity to Lygia Clark are the DW (1967) sculptures made by the German artist CHARLOTTE POSENENSKE (Wiesbaden, Germany, 1930-1985, Frankfurt, Germany). Made of corrugated cardboard in abstract geometric shapes, they are exhibited differently every week.

THEO CRAVEIRO

Formicary—Visible Idea [Formigueiro―Idéia Visível], 1956/2010

100 x 100 x 15 cm

Courtesy the artist

The young Brazilian artist THEO CRAVEIRO (born in 1983 in Sao Paulo, lives in Sao Paulo, Brazil) decided to create a new system to question whether art has a system or not. Formigueiro—Ideia Visivel (Formicary—Visible Idea, 1956/2010) departs from a key historical painting Idéia Visivel (Visible Idea, 1956) from the Brazilian concrete period by Waldemar Cordeiro, appropriating the design of its black grid over a white background as a glass wall relief containing a living ant farm.

CEVDET EREK

Sounding Dot, 2010

Mono sound, loudspeaker, amplifier, CD player, and paint, 1:24 min.

60 x 60 x 0.4 cm

Courtesy of the artist and Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, Austria 

From Sky Ornamentation with 3 Sounding Dots and Anti-Pigeon Net (So3sdapn) commissioned by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, Austria and Vehbi Koç Foundation, Istanbul, Turkey

CEVDET EREK (born 1974, Istanbul, lives and works in Istanbul) Anti-Pigeon Net (2010) grew out of an installation he made at the courtyard of Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary in Vienna, using anti-pigeon netting and sound. The abstract grid calls forth cleanliness and sanitization, through a scatological counter-reference.

180 Seconds of Lasting Images (2006) by the Beirut-based artists JOANA HADJITHOMAS and KHALIL JOREIGE appears to be a large-scale white monochrome structure, but it is actually composed of 4500 photographs, which upon closer inspection reveal themselves as movie fragments in which some figures can be discerned. The material was developed from a film that belonged to Joreige’s uncle, which the artists found 16 years after the uncle’s kidnapping (he is still missing) during the Lebanese Civil War in 1985. They produced the video by printing every frame of the movie.

See also our previous post: Istanbul Bienniale overview
Find detailed information about this group exhibition at bienal.iksv.org

Video Art Exhibition – Istanbul Modern

Nothing Lasts Forever

Video Art Exhibition

ISTANBUL MODERN

Feburary 1 - May 12, 2006

Nothing Lasts Forever, the 3rd Video Programme at Istanbul Modern presents a selectiorı of significant works by Hussein Chalayan (Turkey), Fischli & Weiss (Switzerland) and Sam Taylor-Wood (Great Britain). These art works are relevant examples of how photography, cinema and video are inexcusable seed-beds for shaping our contemporary iconosphere. Such media have forged their artistic identity reworking representational techniques derived from previous creative traditions. Pictorial composition, theatrical stage sets and the fabling function of the novel are thus updated and transformed to shape our new visual and narrative models. Placing the accent on time and duration, the selected video works heighten out awareness of the fleetingness of time and the lack of eternal truths. They also evince the disappearance of boundaries between artistic disciplines such as painting, sculpture and fashion, and prove how art is able to embody the interactions between different fields of knowledge. 

HUSSEIN CHALAYAN

Hussein Chalayan (Cyprus, b. 1970) links fashion and performance to explore the politics of beauty in relation to the conflicts of his time. 

"Aeroplane Dress" (1999) is a video in which a fashion model directs her gaze at the spectator while different elements of her white metallic dress open up as if she is about to depart creating a powerful image of travelling bodies. "Afterwords" (2000) refers to the painful situation of having to flee your home at a time of war and having to conceal your most treasured possessions; as the artist says, "I wanted to somehow turn a horrific situation into something more poetic." 

FISCHLI & WEISS

The Swiss duo, Peter Fischli (Zurich, b. 1952) and David Weiss, (Zurich, b. 1945), has been working together since 1979 in the field s of sculpture, installation, film and photography. Their work, which is humorous, emotional and deeply metaphysical, explores the relationships between order and chaos, the everyday and the sublime, arousing a feeling of fascination in the spectator, who is invited to discover "the small miracles in everyday life". 

"The Way Things Go" (1987) is a film on a 100-foot long kinetic structure with everyday objects such as old tires, bottles, ladders and even soapsuds that were joined together. When the sculpture was set in motion, a controlled and surprising chain of reactions started creating an amusing happening, The work plays with the laws of physics and chemistry, deals with inevitability and chance and discovers the cosmic magic of a universe in precarious circumstances. 

"Büsy (Kitty)" (2001) presents a cat drinking milk in a dish. The work is a proposal for us to slow down and see how nice it is to just contemplate everyday life. There is a moment of marvel and peace in the fact that nothing or almost nothing is happening and no one is explaining anything. 

SAM TAYLOR-WOOD

Born in London in 1967 and trained as a sculptor at Goldsmiths College, Sam Taylor-Wood asserts that photo and video were a natural development in her research. Her work relates to human vulnerability and contemporary ennui. Many of her pieces are like tableaux vivants where the camel a has a fixed viewpoint and things take place within a unique frame. 

'Still Life" (2001) presents a classic and iconic arrangement of fruit that recalls a painting by Caravaggio or Zurbaran. The pieces of fruit, filmed in time-lapse at very high speed. blossom with mould before putrefying completely and turning into dust in front of viewers' very eyes. This accelerated process reveals the beauty of decay and its surprising and astonishing vitality. 

A Little Death" (2002) is a living composition arranged to appear as a seventeenth-century painting. The body of a dead hare hangs from its leg nailed to the wall, its head resting on a table beside a rosy peach. As the body of the hare begins to rat the animal seems to come alive again thanks to the unremitting movement of the maggots suggesting that life steams out of death. This piece was shot over nine weeks and one of its most intriguing aspects -the resolutely unaffected peach- was in fact an unforeseen accident: an out-of-season fruit that remained whole amidst its surrounding putrefaction.

This video art exhibition was curated by Rosa Martínez

With the Contribution of Caylon - Credit Agricole Group

Video Art Exhibition – Istanbul Modern

The selection of video art works by Rivane Neuenschwander (Brazil), Jacco Olivier (The Netherlands) and Jennifer Steinkamp (USA) shows how some contemporary artists use new technologies to bring painting beyond its classical limits. Thanks to the wide possibilities of projections and computer animations, the traditional genres of landscape and portrait gain movement and change shape, perspective or colour. Through the interaction with sound and architecture, painting abandons its static character, expands from the bounds of the canvas and explores new conceptual and aesthetical territories. 

JACCO OLIVIER (Goes, The Netherlands, b. 1972)

Jacco Olivier has recently created a series of “Moving Pictures” that bring the classical horizons of painting into new areas of technical development and visual pleasure. Jacco Olivier departs from modern painting and he creates a series of pictures with abstract or figurative landscapes. He photographs and films these fragments to produce vivid and poetic animations. Landscapes and human figures become abstract compositions while abstract forms become suddenly figures and real things. These visual narratives are humorous and casual reflections on our world. Their meaning is enhanced by the interconnection of the images and the sound tracks. 

JENNIFER STEINKAMP (Denver, USA, b. 1958)

Jennifer Steinkamp uses computer animation to create virtual forms that provoke new perceptions of the architectural spaces where they are projected. Eye Catching 5 shows the image of a young tree in motion. The foliage, the branches and the trunk bow down, stretch up and rotate smoothly. This image belongs to a series of trees that were specifically created for the Yerebatan Cistern in 2003 during the 8th International Istanbul Biennial. Creating simulated images of fake natural elements and exploring the notions of gravity, turbulence and wind, Steinkamp provides a fascinating and non-narrative visual experience. Her projections bring painting beyond its classical limits. She reinvents the forms of nature, dematerialises the space and produces complex interactions between the viewer and the artwork. 

RIVANE NEUENSCHWANDER (Belo Horizonte, Brazil, b. 1967)

The artist Rivane Neuenschwander connects science and language in order to reinscribe culture into nature. Love Lettering is a video made with her brother, a neuroscientist at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt. Words taken from love letters were cut out and attached to the tails of red-orange fish in an aquarium. The trajectories of the undulating fish compose disconnected or intensified combinations of meanings: “Late – wish – hotel”… “your - talking", and so on. This film includes the perspective of two readers: the real, intended recipient of the original letter and the viewer who sees it recomposed by chance. Combining formal systems with organic forces, Rivane Neuenschwander proposes a new balance between art and nature... Her art suggests that destiny can be changed by interfering through simple means, like writing or tearing a love letter, with the flow of what seems predetermined.

This video art exhibition was curated by Rosa Martinez.

ISTANBUL MODERN
16 April - 25 August 2005