20 Ekim 2008 Pazartesi
18 Ekim 2008 Cumartesi
İhraç fazlası sanat ihtiyacı
10 Ekim’de açılacak olan Outlet, Azra Tüzünoğlu’nun marifeti. Mekân, sıkışan güncel sanat ortamına bir yörünge kazandırma niyetinde.
FOTOĞRAF: MUHSİN AKGÜN
NİGAR AVŞAR (Arşivi)
Sanatın outlet’i olur mu?
Haftaya Tophane’de açılacak olan sanat üssü Outlet, bulunduğu mahalleyle soluk alırken, camianın kıyısında duran sanatçılara da hayat öpücüğü verecek. Söz, kurucu Azra Tüzünoğlu’nda...
Beyoğlu’ndan Fındıklı’ya inen yokuşlar sanatın güzergâhında önemli duraklar haline geldi ne zamandır; Fındıklı’da İstanbul Modern, Tophane’de Tütün Deposu, Karaköy’de Hafriyat derken, şimdi Tophane’yi kesen Boğazkesen Caddesi, ‘İhraç Fazlası Sanat’ altbaşlığındaki Outlet’e ev sahipliği yapmaya hazırlanıyor.Outlet, Radikal Cumartesi ve güncel sanat dergisi Art-ist’e yazdığı sanat kritikleriyle tanıdığımız Azra Tüzünoğlu’nun marifeti, aylarca süren meşakkatli bir çalışmanın ürünü. İddialı bir yapım Outlet; her şeyden önce sıkışan güncel sanat ortamına bir yörünge kazandırma, genç sanatçıyı, kıyıdaki sanat üretimini izleyiciyle buluşturma derdinde.10 Ekim’de kapılarını açacak mekân, sanatçı Merve Şendil’in Jean Luc Godard’ın ‘Alphaville’inden ödünç aldığı, ‘Normal Olmayı Reddediyorum!’dan hareket ediyor ve ilk serginin adını da aynen koyuyor: ‘Normal Olmayı Reddediyorum!’. Fikret Atay’ın ‘Theorists//Teorisyenler’, Bashir Borlakov’un ‘Hemşire’, Burak Delier’in ‘KontraAtak’, Servet Koçyiğit’in ‘Motherland’ ve ‘Shake It Till Drops’ ve Cengiz Tekin’in ‘Stratejik Analiz Dersleri’yle sergi 20 Kasım’a dek Outlet’te. Azra Tüzünoğlu’yla Outlet’in Tophane’deki macerasını, ezberi şaşan mahalleliyle tecrübeyi ve güncel sanatın ihtiyaçlarını konuştuk.
Outlet’in muradı ne?
Outlet, Türkiye’deki sanat ortamına bir canlılık kazandırma girişimi. Güncel sanat ortamının sıkıştığı bir alan var. O alanı genişletmek gerekiyor; tekelleşmiş yapılarla, kurumsallaşmış yerlerle değil de, daha küçük, parçalı, farklı işler yapacak insanlarla olacak bu dönüşüm. Burayı da öyle bir alan olarak kurgulama arzusundayım. Bizim niyetimiz, hem böyle yeni bir alan açacak, zemin üretecek bir oluşumu başlatmak, hem de sanatçılar için bir destek noktası olabilmek. Hem bir mahallede ürettiğini bilerek hem de illa bu mahalleye özgü üretimler yapma peşine de düşmeden, geniş düşünen, ama nerede olduğunu da bilen bir hareket alanı yaratmakla ilgileniyorum.
Sıkışan sanat alanından sıyrılıp kitlelere ulaşmak gibi bir niyetiniz olduğunu da okuduk. Kitle tahayyülünüz ne?
Elbette buraya sanatsever kitle gelecek. Onlara gelmeyin diyemeyiz, gelmeliler de. Sanatın o 200 kişilik cemaatinden daha geniş bir alana yayılmakla ilgileniyorum. Bu nasıl olacak? Bu sizin yaptığınız işle alakalı. Biz burada beş-altı aydır çalışıyoruz. Önce komşularla başlayan bir ilişkimiz oldu. Köşede kahvecimiz var, buraya ilk geldiğimizde gökten inmiş gibiydik. Henüz açılmamış olmamıza rağmen merak ediyorlar, yardım ediyorlar, sandalye taşınıyor, birlikte iş yapıyoruz... Böyle başladık; şimdi mesela öğrencilerle ilişki kurmakla ilgileniyoruz. Günümün önemli bir kısmını öğrencilerle konuşarak, yeni sanat yapan insanlarla yatay bağlantılar kurarak harcıyorum. Bunun da çok önemli geri dönüşleri olacağını düşünüyorum.
Outlet’in ihtiyaç belirlemek gibi bir gündemi var. Güncel sanat ortamının ihtiyaçları neler?
90’lardaki dert: Sanatçının burada varlığı yok gibiydi, sanat ihraç ediliyordu. Outlet’e ismini veren de bu. Tüm bu üretimler geri döndüğünde gösterilecek alanı da yoktu ya da çok dardı. Bir bienal vardı, az sayıda küratörün yaptığı sergilerde ya vardınız ya da yoktunuz veya tamamen dışarısındaydınız. Bir yandan da dışarıya doğru üretme meselesi nüksediyordu. 2000’lerde de büyük banka galerileri, müzelerin açılmaya başlamasıyla, daha oturaklı, bürokratik kuralları olan ve büyük sermayenin yönlendirdiği mekânlar ve sergiler açıldı. 90’larda sanatçılar arasında birlikte hareket etmek varken, 2000’lerde bu çözüldü ve daha bireysel bir sanatçı profili ortaya çıkmaya başladı. Şimdi de star sanatçılara doğru gittiğimiz bir dönemdeyiz. İki kutup var: Birincisi, kurumsal-ağır işleyen mekânlar, ikinci kutup inisiyatifler, küçük oluşumlar... İki kutup arasında derin uçurumlar var ve ara alanlarımız az, enstitüler, galeriler yok. Sürekli üretim yapan, yeninin peşinde koşan ve bunları izleyiciyle buluşturmayı dert eden alanlar boş...
Güncel sanat izleyicisinin profili ne? Kim bu izleyici?
Herkes olabilir. Güncel sanat güncel olanla, tam da sokaktakinin derdiyle, politikayla, ekonomiyle ilgileniyor. Yeni medyayı da kullanıyor. Bütün bunların anlaşılmaması abesle iştigal. Bu fazlasıyla karşılaşmakla alakalı. Daha fazla noktada karşılaşılırsa iletişim kurulmaya başlayacak. İnsanın ilgisi şöyle uyanıyor: Önce bir şeyleri görüyorsun, anlamasan da gördüğün şeyle başlıyorsun, sonra o gördüklerinle aynı aileden farklı şeyleri o kadar çok görmeye başlıyorsun ki, ‘Bu ne’ diye soruyorsun. Ondan sonra anlam, etki, tepki, zevk, bilgi ilişkisi başlıyor. Yaygınlaştırmakla ilgisi var. Dolayısıyla bu konuda umutsuz değilim.
Outlet’in Tophane’de açılması bu anlamda önemli bir tercih, öyle mi?
Bu sadece sanatçıyla, galeriyle ya da müzeyle ilgili değil, aynı zamanda izleyiciyle de ilgili. Önce arzunun oluşması gerekiyor. Bu istek paraşütle de inmez kimseye. Ya sanatçı, ya sergi, ya konu, ya enerji bilemiyorum, bir şey yakalayacak, çekip kolundan bakmaya zorlayacak. Bunun yollarını da deneyeceğiz. İlk sergide Fikret Atay’ın işini gösteriyoruz: Mardin’le Batman arasında bir yaz Kur’an kursundaki ezber yapan insanlar var videoda. Sahne şu: Bir büyük salon, herkesin ayakları çıplak, zaten ayak hizasından çekilmiş görüntüler, sadece gövdeleri gözüküyor ve insanlar aşağı yukarı, ellerindeki Kur’an fasikülleriyle yürüyüp ezber yapıyor... Bu işi izlerken karşısında duramıyorsun. O videonun karşısında yüzleşmek, ne hissettiğinin hesabını vermek zorundasın. 1 Mayıs 2008’de çekilmiş... Ben defalarca izledim, bütün bu çevrenin entelektüelleri de izleyecek, ama bu sokakta Kadiriler Tarikatı yaşıyor. Onlar da başka türlü bakacaklar. Ama sonuçta aynı videoyu izleyeceğiz! En önemli işim onları içeri sokmak. İşte geniş kitleler için bir adım.
Altı ay öncesine kadar Tophane sizin için nasıl bir yerdi?
Tophane bildiğim bir yer değildi. Tütün Deposu’na, bu yokuştan inip İstanbul Modern’e, Karaköy Hafriyat’a gidip geliyorduk. Ama burada olduğun zaman burasının bir mahalle olduğunu görüyorsun. Beyoğlu’ndan da izole bir yer. Burada başka bir hayat var, birçok insanın İstiklal Caddesi’yle hiçbir ilişkisi yok. Homojen bir yapısı da yok. Çok farklı gruplar, etnik kökenleri farklı insanlar yaşıyor. Yavaş yavaş da değişiyor. Beyoğlu’na bu kadar yakın olup, bu kadar ucuz olan ve aynı zamanda mutenalaşmamış bir yer Tophane...
Azra Hanım’dan ‘Abla’ya geçtiniz mi mahallede?!
Abla durumu var tabii! Buradaki insanlara benzemiyorsun ama ablasın işte... Bir gün mahalleli kızlar asistanımı görmeye geldiler! Asistanım sarışın, mavi gözlü, 1.85 boyunda; pembe tişört giyip kısa şortuyla çalışan genç bir erkek. Kızlar hayretle pembe tişörte bakıyorlar. Kodlar bozuldu, ezberleri şaştı. Bir erkek pembe tişört giyiyor, ama babası, abisi giymiyor... Olabildiğince onları rahatsız etmeden çalışmak, diğer yandan kendim olarak kalma niyetindeyim. Açılışı eylülde yapacakken, Ramazan diye 10 Ekim’e erteledik. İçki verdiğimiz zaman mahallelinin rahatsız olmasını istemedim. Onlara saygısızlık etmiş olurduk...
14 Ekim 2008 Salı
The National
Bridge over troubled water
Last Updated: October 02. 2008 2:57PM UAE / October 2. 2008 10:57AM GMT
Detail from Cindy Sherman's Untitled FIlm Still #17, currently on display at Istanbul Modern's Held Together With Water. Courtesy Cindy Sherman / Metro Pictures
As Istanbul Modern prepares to turn four, a new show finds it coming into its own. Kaelen Wilson-Goldie reports.
A city of 15 million people splayed over the joint between Europe and Asia, Istanbul boasts a thriving art scene replete with commercial galleries, public institutions, private museums, studios, residency programs, project spaces and a handful of serious art stars such as Kutlug Ataman and Haluk Akakçe. The international art world has deigned to recognise the city since 1987, when the Istanbul Biennial was born. Nonetheless and however absurd, Istanbul is still regarded as peripheral to the art world’s centres in Europe and North America. Among artists and curators, anxieties over occidental versus oriental influence persist. The exhibition Held Together with Water, on view at the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art until January 11, features two videos that confront these anxieties head on.
The first piece is Nil Yalter’s 1974 video La Femme sans tete ou la danse du Ventre (The Headless Woman or the Belly Dance). A groundbreaking work by a Turkish artist who was born in Cairo and has been based in Paris since the 1960s (a columnist for Turkey’s Today’s Zaman newspaper recently likened her art to a national treasure fit for the official archives), the piece frames the artist’s bare midriff as she uses a felt-tip pen to write passages from a text on eroticism in winding circles around her navel. When her skin is all but covered in ink, she begins to dance, oriental style, cleverly collapsing a set of competing clichés about the drive for women’s sexual liberation (in the West) and the desire for old-school exotic seduction (in the East).
The second piece is Sener Özmen and Cengiz Tekin’s uproarious 2004 video The Meeting or Bonjour Monsieur Courbet. Deliciously irreverent, the work presents three men who meet in a wasted rural landscape, insult one another and, in a final crescendo, exchange blows over ludicrous claims about realism, revolutionaries and the bourgeoisie. While Yalter’s piece skewers the feminine mystique, Özmen and Tekin’s playfully ridicules masculinity. Yet both works strike an important chord that situates the exhibition in a specific place and time.
Detail from Francesca Woodman’s Untitled (Providence, Rhode Island, 1975-1976/1997-2000). Courtesy George and Betty Woodman
Istanbul Modern, as the museum is widely known, turns four in December. It opened its doors to much fanfare in late 2004, when its inauguration was politically fast-tracked to coincide with the announcement that summit talks would soon take place on Turkey’s European Union membership bid. (Recip Tayyip Erdogan, the country’s prime minister, addressed the press amid the white walls of the newly minted museum.) Istanbul Modern is in many ways regarded today as a showcase for Turkey’s European ambitions, though it is notably not a state institution.
Many of Istanbul’s museums and art spaces are private initiatives backed by major banks – such as the Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center and the Yapi Kredi Kazim Taskent Sanat Galerisi. Others are financed by corporations, holding companies or the estates of business tycoons – such as the Pera Museum (funded by the Koç family) and the Sakip Sabanci Museum (which organised Picasso in Istanbul, a 2005 exhibition billed as the first of its kind for a western artist in Turkey, and is currently hosting a blockbuster show on Salvador Dalí).
Istanbul Modern is inextricably linked to the Eczacibasi family, industrialists and cultural philanthropists who in 1973 established the Istanbul Foundational for Culture and Arts. In addition to Istanbul Modern, the foundation oversees the Istanbul Biennial, several jazz, film and theatre festivals and a series of smaller, more intimate cultural events. The Eczacibasi family prised Istanbul Modern’s venue from the state – a boxy, 8,000 square metre space in a former customs warehouse that edges the bustling Bosporus. But it financed thebuilding’s $5 million (Dh18.3m) renovation alone.
Though Istanbul’s relationship to other cities in the Middle East is far from straightforward, the museum is an interesting case study for arts initiatives emerging elsewhere in the region. The current exhibition – which is bolstered by an enjoyable if fairly lightweight photography show (Human Conditions, featuring the Turkish artists Sitki Kösemen, Süreyya Yilmaz Dernek and Ergün Turan), a weightier video program (The City Rises, pairing the Turkish video artists Ali Kazma and Fikret Atay with vintage works by the Polish artist Zbig Rybczynski) and a film series dedicated to Tilda Swinton – is an opportunity to assess its achievements.
Held Together with Water features 116 works by 39 artists and retrieves much of its material from the vault that was 1970s feminism. There are examples of body art, performance art, video art and a slew of gender-bending experiments in which women photograph themselves as men and vice versa. There are rarely-shown works by well-known artists such as Cindy Sherman, Valie Export, Suzy Lake and Eleanor Antin alongside masterpieces by less-known artists such as Birgit Jürgenssen and Francesca Woodman.
Held Together with Water offers a glimpse of Cindy Sherman’s early efforts, such as the 16-milometer silent film Doll Clothes and several photographic series made before the artist’s landmark Untitled Film Stills. It sets feminist art in context rather than considering it in isolation. Named for a floor sculpture by Lawrence Weiner that is skillfully installed at the entrance to the show, Held Together with Water balances a certain intellectual austerity (Bernd and Hilla Becher, Gordon Matta-Clark, Fred Sandback) with a lightness of touch (a nine-channel video of Francis Alÿs tumbling over a stray dog in Mexico City) and subversive street cred (Nan Goldin’s gritty imagery, David Wojnarowicz’s Arthur Rimbaud in New York series).
The exhibition ponders the ways in which feminists, conceptualists and urban interventionists all broke with traditional methods of art-making such as painting and sculpting. It considers how these cracks and fractures extend from the 1970s to the present day. And it explores the critical turns that photography in particular has taken over nearly four decades.
Still, it is worth noting that Held Together with Water is as much a corporate merger as an artistic enterprise. All of the works in the show come from a collection that was established by Austria’s leading electricity company, Verbund, in 2004 (Philipp Kaiser of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and Marc-Olivier Wahler from Paris’ Palais de Tokyo sit on the Verbund collection’s board of advisors). Last year, Verbund entered into a joint venture with Turkey’s Sabanci Holding, and each company now holds a 50 per cent stake in EnerjiSA, which aims to acquire a ten per cent share in the Turkish electricity sector and hopes to be a player in a privatization process. So Held Together with Water, which represents the first public presentation of the Verbund collection outside of Austria, may be most cynically viewed as a signing bonus. This could be seen as cause for lamentation over the insidious intermingling of commerce and culture, but the collection is too strong for that. More generously, the exhibition might be a model for private sector involvement in the arts.
Levent Çalikoglu, Istanbul Modern’s chief curator, writes rather passionately in the exhibition catalogue about how Held Together with Water epitomises the museum’s mission, which is to promote Turkish modern art, introduce Turkey to contemporary international art and forge meaningful links between the two. Istanbul Modern’s previous exhibitions, eclectic to say the least, haven’t always been so effective. But it seems that the museum is somehow, somewhat, on the right track.
Recent changes in the creative and administrative staff, however, raise a few red flags. When Istanbul Modern first opened, Rosa Martinez was the museum’s chief curator. She organised 16 exhibitions in three years. A Spanish curator with considerable art world clout – she has organised countless high-profile biennials from Sao Paulo to Venice – Martinez has been heavily involved in Istanbul’s contemporary art scene since the late 1990s. In 2007, David Elliott, a British curator who held previous posts at Modern Art Oxford and the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo – joined her as Istanbul Modern’s new director. In interviews, he outlined a vision for the museum over a three-year tenure. But by the end of last year, both Martinez and Elliott were gone. Elliott reportedly resigned over a dispute with Oya Eczacibasi regarding the permanent collection (Oya Eczacibasi chairs Istanbul Modern’s board of directors, and a substantial portion of the museum’s permanent collection was donated, of course, by the Eczacibasi family). Now Elliott is on deck to curate the next Sydney Biennale. Istanbul Modern, meanwhile, has no director.
Last Updated: October 02. 2008 2:57PM UAE / October 2. 2008 10:57AM GMT
Detail from Cindy Sherman's Untitled FIlm Still #17, currently on display at Istanbul Modern's Held Together With Water. Courtesy Cindy Sherman / Metro Pictures
As Istanbul Modern prepares to turn four, a new show finds it coming into its own. Kaelen Wilson-Goldie reports.
A city of 15 million people splayed over the joint between Europe and Asia, Istanbul boasts a thriving art scene replete with commercial galleries, public institutions, private museums, studios, residency programs, project spaces and a handful of serious art stars such as Kutlug Ataman and Haluk Akakçe. The international art world has deigned to recognise the city since 1987, when the Istanbul Biennial was born. Nonetheless and however absurd, Istanbul is still regarded as peripheral to the art world’s centres in Europe and North America. Among artists and curators, anxieties over occidental versus oriental influence persist. The exhibition Held Together with Water, on view at the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art until January 11, features two videos that confront these anxieties head on.
The first piece is Nil Yalter’s 1974 video La Femme sans tete ou la danse du Ventre (The Headless Woman or the Belly Dance). A groundbreaking work by a Turkish artist who was born in Cairo and has been based in Paris since the 1960s (a columnist for Turkey’s Today’s Zaman newspaper recently likened her art to a national treasure fit for the official archives), the piece frames the artist’s bare midriff as she uses a felt-tip pen to write passages from a text on eroticism in winding circles around her navel. When her skin is all but covered in ink, she begins to dance, oriental style, cleverly collapsing a set of competing clichés about the drive for women’s sexual liberation (in the West) and the desire for old-school exotic seduction (in the East).
The second piece is Sener Özmen and Cengiz Tekin’s uproarious 2004 video The Meeting or Bonjour Monsieur Courbet. Deliciously irreverent, the work presents three men who meet in a wasted rural landscape, insult one another and, in a final crescendo, exchange blows over ludicrous claims about realism, revolutionaries and the bourgeoisie. While Yalter’s piece skewers the feminine mystique, Özmen and Tekin’s playfully ridicules masculinity. Yet both works strike an important chord that situates the exhibition in a specific place and time.
Detail from Francesca Woodman’s Untitled (Providence, Rhode Island, 1975-1976/1997-2000). Courtesy George and Betty Woodman
Istanbul Modern, as the museum is widely known, turns four in December. It opened its doors to much fanfare in late 2004, when its inauguration was politically fast-tracked to coincide with the announcement that summit talks would soon take place on Turkey’s European Union membership bid. (Recip Tayyip Erdogan, the country’s prime minister, addressed the press amid the white walls of the newly minted museum.) Istanbul Modern is in many ways regarded today as a showcase for Turkey’s European ambitions, though it is notably not a state institution.
Many of Istanbul’s museums and art spaces are private initiatives backed by major banks – such as the Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center and the Yapi Kredi Kazim Taskent Sanat Galerisi. Others are financed by corporations, holding companies or the estates of business tycoons – such as the Pera Museum (funded by the Koç family) and the Sakip Sabanci Museum (which organised Picasso in Istanbul, a 2005 exhibition billed as the first of its kind for a western artist in Turkey, and is currently hosting a blockbuster show on Salvador Dalí).
Istanbul Modern is inextricably linked to the Eczacibasi family, industrialists and cultural philanthropists who in 1973 established the Istanbul Foundational for Culture and Arts. In addition to Istanbul Modern, the foundation oversees the Istanbul Biennial, several jazz, film and theatre festivals and a series of smaller, more intimate cultural events. The Eczacibasi family prised Istanbul Modern’s venue from the state – a boxy, 8,000 square metre space in a former customs warehouse that edges the bustling Bosporus. But it financed thebuilding’s $5 million (Dh18.3m) renovation alone.
Though Istanbul’s relationship to other cities in the Middle East is far from straightforward, the museum is an interesting case study for arts initiatives emerging elsewhere in the region. The current exhibition – which is bolstered by an enjoyable if fairly lightweight photography show (Human Conditions, featuring the Turkish artists Sitki Kösemen, Süreyya Yilmaz Dernek and Ergün Turan), a weightier video program (The City Rises, pairing the Turkish video artists Ali Kazma and Fikret Atay with vintage works by the Polish artist Zbig Rybczynski) and a film series dedicated to Tilda Swinton – is an opportunity to assess its achievements.
Held Together with Water features 116 works by 39 artists and retrieves much of its material from the vault that was 1970s feminism. There are examples of body art, performance art, video art and a slew of gender-bending experiments in which women photograph themselves as men and vice versa. There are rarely-shown works by well-known artists such as Cindy Sherman, Valie Export, Suzy Lake and Eleanor Antin alongside masterpieces by less-known artists such as Birgit Jürgenssen and Francesca Woodman.
Held Together with Water offers a glimpse of Cindy Sherman’s early efforts, such as the 16-milometer silent film Doll Clothes and several photographic series made before the artist’s landmark Untitled Film Stills. It sets feminist art in context rather than considering it in isolation. Named for a floor sculpture by Lawrence Weiner that is skillfully installed at the entrance to the show, Held Together with Water balances a certain intellectual austerity (Bernd and Hilla Becher, Gordon Matta-Clark, Fred Sandback) with a lightness of touch (a nine-channel video of Francis Alÿs tumbling over a stray dog in Mexico City) and subversive street cred (Nan Goldin’s gritty imagery, David Wojnarowicz’s Arthur Rimbaud in New York series).
The exhibition ponders the ways in which feminists, conceptualists and urban interventionists all broke with traditional methods of art-making such as painting and sculpting. It considers how these cracks and fractures extend from the 1970s to the present day. And it explores the critical turns that photography in particular has taken over nearly four decades.
Still, it is worth noting that Held Together with Water is as much a corporate merger as an artistic enterprise. All of the works in the show come from a collection that was established by Austria’s leading electricity company, Verbund, in 2004 (Philipp Kaiser of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and Marc-Olivier Wahler from Paris’ Palais de Tokyo sit on the Verbund collection’s board of advisors). Last year, Verbund entered into a joint venture with Turkey’s Sabanci Holding, and each company now holds a 50 per cent stake in EnerjiSA, which aims to acquire a ten per cent share in the Turkish electricity sector and hopes to be a player in a privatization process. So Held Together with Water, which represents the first public presentation of the Verbund collection outside of Austria, may be most cynically viewed as a signing bonus. This could be seen as cause for lamentation over the insidious intermingling of commerce and culture, but the collection is too strong for that. More generously, the exhibition might be a model for private sector involvement in the arts.
Levent Çalikoglu, Istanbul Modern’s chief curator, writes rather passionately in the exhibition catalogue about how Held Together with Water epitomises the museum’s mission, which is to promote Turkish modern art, introduce Turkey to contemporary international art and forge meaningful links between the two. Istanbul Modern’s previous exhibitions, eclectic to say the least, haven’t always been so effective. But it seems that the museum is somehow, somewhat, on the right track.
Recent changes in the creative and administrative staff, however, raise a few red flags. When Istanbul Modern first opened, Rosa Martinez was the museum’s chief curator. She organised 16 exhibitions in three years. A Spanish curator with considerable art world clout – she has organised countless high-profile biennials from Sao Paulo to Venice – Martinez has been heavily involved in Istanbul’s contemporary art scene since the late 1990s. In 2007, David Elliott, a British curator who held previous posts at Modern Art Oxford and the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo – joined her as Istanbul Modern’s new director. In interviews, he outlined a vision for the museum over a three-year tenure. But by the end of last year, both Martinez and Elliott were gone. Elliott reportedly resigned over a dispute with Oya Eczacibasi regarding the permanent collection (Oya Eczacibasi chairs Istanbul Modern’s board of directors, and a substantial portion of the museum’s permanent collection was donated, of course, by the Eczacibasi family). Now Elliott is on deck to curate the next Sydney Biennale. Istanbul Modern, meanwhile, has no director.
6 Ekim 2008 Pazartesi
outlet/İhraç Fazlası Sanat 10 Ekim de açılıyor..
Outlet, sosyal ve kültürel adaletsizliğin bunca derinleştiği bir ortam/zamanda, lüks olarak görülen sanatı, kitlelerle buluşturma girişimidir. Outlet; müzeler, enstitüler, banka galerileri, kurumlar arasında giderek sıkışan sanat ortamı için bir nefes alma alanı yaratmayı ve yenilikçi, risk alabilen projeler gerçekleştirmeyi hedefler. Outlet; farklı ülke ve kuşaklardan sanatçıların; farklı teknik, üslup ve ifade biçimleriyle ürettikleri yapıtlarını kamuyla paylaşmayı dert eder. Hem galeri hem de non-profit bir mekan olarak işleyecek olan proje; yayın, eğitim, arşiv, sanat ve koleksiyon danışmanlığı bölümleriyle geniş bir faaliyet alanına sahiptir. Outlet; içinde bulunduğu alanın ihtiyaçlarına yanıt vermekten ziyade, ihtiyacı belirlemek ve dönüştürmekle ilgilenir. Bu anlamda değeri vaktinde anlaşılmamış, üretim kalitesi-dili açısından üstün ama çeşitli koşullar sebebiyle değer bulamamış üretimleri sergilemeyi-paylaşmayı dert edinir. Türkiye güncel sanat ortamına canlılık kazandırma girişimi olarak kurgulanan mekan, galerisi olan küçük bir sanatçı azınlığın ötesinde, çokça üreten ve yapıtlarını paylaşma olanağı bulamayan sanatçıların yanında olmayı hedefler. Sanatçının da kendini ait hissedebileceği bir alan yaratmanın derdinde olan esnek bir yapı kurmayı amaçlar. Bu anlamda Outlet bir galeri değil, galeri ironisidir. Outlet; İstanbul’un sanat haritasında Beyoğlu’ndan Fındıklı’ya inen aksın, “sanat yürüyüş alanı” olmasında dönüştürücü bir rol üstlenmeye adaydır. 3 kata yayılan sergileme alanıyla Outlet, merkeze çokça yakın olmasına karşın, Beyoğlu’yla neredeyse hiç bağlantı kurmayan Tophane’nin; sanatla yakınlaşmasında belirleyici alanlardan olacak. Sanatın gündemini takip etmek isteyenlerin yeni adresi Outlet, büyük bir sermaye desteği olmadan, bireysel çabalar ve Canan Pak, AYK, MAS Matbaası, Koyuncu Bilgisayar, The Point Otel, Beck’s, Netcopy Center ve Derin Design’ın sponsorluğuyla Azra Tüzünoğlu tarafından yürütülmektedir.
OUTLET of Contemporary Art opens its doors on October 10th 2008!
Outlet is an attempt to bring art, regarded as a luxury commodity, to the masses in a time and space where social and cultural inequity is deeply entrenched. Outlet aims to create a recreation area or a breathing place, for the art milieu captured by museums, institutions, bank galleries and intends to actualize innovative and risk-taking projects. Outlet’s concern is to share the works of artists from different countries and generations, produced with different art techniques, styles and forms of expression. The project will function both as a gallery and a non-profit organization and has a broad connection to publication and education means, as well as to artists’ archives and consultancy for art collections. Outlet is concerned with determining and converting the needs of the art milieu rather than fitting into it. In this sense, it is concerned with remarkable art works that are perhaps not appreciated in their time and those which attract attention in terms of quality of production and expression, but are ignored in some circumstances. Outlet is conceived as an attempt to revitalize the contemporary artistic milieu in Istanbul and aims to support prolific artists who rarely have the chance to show their works. Outlet will foster an atmosphere in which the artist can feel at ease in a flexible structure. In this sense, Outlet is not a gallery; but is a sheer irony! Outlet is the brand new address for those who are interested in the current / contemporary art agenda and is run by Azra Tüzünoğlu, with the contribution of individual efforts and the sponsorship of Canan Pak, AYK, MAS Printing House, Koyuncu Computer, The Point Hotel, Beck’s, Coca Cola, Netcopy Center and Derin Design. Outlet//Export Surplus ArtTuesday-Saturday: 10:00-18:00, Closed on Mondays, Sundays (from October 10th)Boğazkesen CaddesiKadirler Yokuşu No:69Tophane-Istanbul
OUTLET of Contemporary Art opens its doors on October 10th 2008!
Outlet is an attempt to bring art, regarded as a luxury commodity, to the masses in a time and space where social and cultural inequity is deeply entrenched. Outlet aims to create a recreation area or a breathing place, for the art milieu captured by museums, institutions, bank galleries and intends to actualize innovative and risk-taking projects. Outlet’s concern is to share the works of artists from different countries and generations, produced with different art techniques, styles and forms of expression. The project will function both as a gallery and a non-profit organization and has a broad connection to publication and education means, as well as to artists’ archives and consultancy for art collections. Outlet is concerned with determining and converting the needs of the art milieu rather than fitting into it. In this sense, it is concerned with remarkable art works that are perhaps not appreciated in their time and those which attract attention in terms of quality of production and expression, but are ignored in some circumstances. Outlet is conceived as an attempt to revitalize the contemporary artistic milieu in Istanbul and aims to support prolific artists who rarely have the chance to show their works. Outlet will foster an atmosphere in which the artist can feel at ease in a flexible structure. In this sense, Outlet is not a gallery; but is a sheer irony! Outlet is the brand new address for those who are interested in the current / contemporary art agenda and is run by Azra Tüzünoğlu, with the contribution of individual efforts and the sponsorship of Canan Pak, AYK, MAS Printing House, Koyuncu Computer, The Point Hotel, Beck’s, Coca Cola, Netcopy Center and Derin Design. Outlet//Export Surplus ArtTuesday-Saturday: 10:00-18:00, Closed on Mondays, Sundays (from October 10th)Boğazkesen CaddesiKadirler Yokuşu No:69Tophane-Istanbul
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