What's showing in art: Istanbul...interrupted
There is A LOT going on in Istanbul, and I've only gotten to scratch the surface. There's a cool mix of established art spaces and small galleries, art and design.
There's the relatively new Istanbul Modern, in a converted warehouse on the banks of the Bosphorus. It had a pretty good exhibition entitled "In Praise of Shadows" which predictably included works by William Kentridge and Kara Walker, but also separately showed some traditional Turkish shadow puppet videos. (Through May 6)
Like in Brazil (post 1, post 2), the banks in Turkey play a major role in creating contemporary art and performance spaces. One of the galleries is the Yapı Kredi Kâzım Taşkent Sanat Galerisi on Istiklal Caddesi, the main pedestrian shopping street. There was an exhibit of, and document of a performance by, the artist Şükran Moral. I was blown away by how explicit the performance was, depicting female genital mutilation, forced marriage, and stoning to death. (Through May 3)
On the same street are a host of other galleries, including quite a few in the Mısır Apartımanı building, where there's one floor after another with a gallery on it. I wouldn't have known about it, since there really isn't a reception on the ground floor - you just have to know to start hiking upstairs. I knew I was in the right place when I heard some lo-fi, poorly acted dialogue. It must be video art!
The lady who clued me into the Mısır Apartımanı building was the super-friendly prioprietor of Galeri Apel. She welcomed me when I stepped into her gallery, and when I was on my way out, asked me if I had a list of other galleries to go to. She produced a map with a good selection on it - just what I needed! A lot of guidebooks are thin in this area, and none have maps that go past Taksim Square, the north end of Istiklal Caddesi. Galeri Apel itself was a really cool space.
With this map in hand, I came back to the neighborhood to look for other galleries that looked interersting. I found one, closed. I rung the bell of another (Elipsis Gallery, a gallery focusing on photography with a new exhibit called "Transparent City & Architecture of Density" which I really wanted to see). No response. I went back to Galeri Apel to ask the nice lady what was going on. Around this area, I saw a lot of police, and people walking in the opposite direction I was going. Galeri Apel was also shuttered!
I kept walking towards Istiklal Caddesi to try to get to the galleries on the other side of the street, but around here some Turkish people motioned me to turn around. I saw some people with cloths covering their lower faces. One guy's face was completely red, and he was rubbing it with a lemon half. Some other people were holding their noses - did I just walk into a sewage area and my nose is just plugged?
It turns out that today is May 1, a big day in parts of the world for being International Worker's Day. Here's a good article from The Guardian about today's events. Tear gas and pepper spray, not sewage.
So unfortunately my Istanbul gallery visits were cut short, and I just barely scratched the surface of the city's art scene. But what I saw impressed me, along with the stuff that was showing at the other galleries, which I saw on their websites as I was plotting my gallery walk. Definitely a city to return to again.
