Turkey’s first museum of modern and contemporary art Istanbul Modern will welcome those who have opted to remain in Istanbul during the upcoming Qurban Bayram holiday, more commonly known as Eid al-Adha outside the country.
Thousands of Istanbulites leave the city every year over the Islamic holiday as an opportunity to visit their extended family, but those who decide to stay in the city this year will be able to plunge into the era of the 1950s by paying a visit to Istanbul Modern.
New exhibition collection
Istanbul Modern will present its new exhibition collection, which reflects Turkey’s contemporary art from the 1950s. The collection brings together abstract and figurative works of art from nature and the environment that helped shape the artistic culture in Turkey.
On the second floor of the museum, visitors will encounter international works of contemporary art inspired by nature and the environment. The exhibition will focus on recent works by artists passionate about environmental problems, with nature reflected in their paintings, sculptures, videos, installations and photography.
On the third floor of the museum, a chronological abstract and figurative picture of the development of Turkey’s art culture in the 1950s will await viewers. The exhibition, which includes works that will be presented for the first time to the public, consists of 40 works by 30 artists from two different generations, namely Kuzgun Acar, Haluk Akakçe, Erol Akyavaş, Tomur Atagök, Alper Aydın, Jennifer Steinkamp, Ziya Tacir, Canan Tolon, F. Tülin, Ömer Uluç, Fahrelnissa Zeid and many others.
'Guests: Artists and craftspeople'
The Istanbul Development Agency (ISTKA) supported by the International Artist Residency Program under the innovative and creative Istanbul Support Program organized the first meeting of artists from around the world with Istanbul’s craftspeople on the roof of the museum.
The artists participating in the program, which aims to increase interest in Istanbul on a global scale, worked with masters of many crafts from wood carving to carpet weaving, metal plastering and quilt making. The works in the exhibition were curated by Öykü Özsoy and Ümit Mesci, from Istanbul Modern. The artists mainly focused on craft and tradition in production processes or carried out their works with different materials and techniques.
'Lütfi Özkök: Portraits'
Providing a platform for artists working in the direction of literary and artistic portraits, the museum will also present an exhibition of portrait photographs by Lütfi Özkök, whose works take the viewer on a visual journey from the 1950s to the 1990s when Özkök began his career in photography and publishing in literary magazines.
More than 80 portraits of writers and artists are included in a selection compiled from the archive in Stockholm, where the world-famous artist lived for some time. The exhibition features 89 portraits of 24 authors and Nobel laureates.
Istanbul Modern will be open to visitors during the holiday, on Aug. 1-2.