Gabriele Cazzulini
40 votos
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| Mounira Al Solh’s ‘The sea is a stereo’ (2006), featured at last year’s Istanbul Biennial |
The international art map of 2010 is about to be redrawn; move over India, Russia and China – this year, the art world is shifting its gaze to Turkey. Sotheby’s is holding its second sale of Turkish contemporary art next month in London and Istanbul has been crowned the 2010 European Capital of Culture, while private Turkish collectors transform the capital with a succession of new foundations and galleries.
“Turkey, with its rich Ottoman cultural heritage, has once again in recent years earned its seat in the high courts of culture. Evidence of this cultural ‘recovery’ can be found in film and music. The same now holds true in the visual arts. Proof in this arena is the growing importance of the Istanbul Biennial,” says Maryam Eisler, executive editor of Unleashed: Contemporary Art from Turkey.
The biennial, founded by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts in 1987, has acted as a catalyst for Istanbul’s art scene. The city’s cultural landscape has evolved in tandem with the country’s quest “to redefine itself as a new, open and liberal Muslim democracy and to secure entry to the European Union”, adds Eisler.
Kerimcan Guleryuz of Istanbul’s Gallery x-ist agrees that the millennium was the turning point for Turkish modern and contemporary art. “Until then, there were no real galleries, no museums, no collectors,” he says. Turkish collector Ahmet Kocabiyik – chairman of Borusan Holding company and owner of more than 600 contemporary works by such leading Turkish figures as Ayse Erkmen, known for her subtle architectural interventions, and painter Ekrem Yalcindag, – also marvels at the pace of change: “Ten years ago there were merely three or four galleries in Istanbul. Today this number exceeds 250.”
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| ‘Glitch IV’ by the San Francisco-based Canan Tolon |
But the mécène-led museum really hit its stride with the trailblazing private-sector art project, Istanbul Modern, housed in a former 19th-century warehouse on Karakoy quay. The museum, launched in 2004, is the brainchild of the Turkish pharmaceutical company, the Eczacibasi Holding group. The chair of the museum board, Oya Eczacibasi, along with her husband Bulent, donates works to the 1,000-strong contemporary Turkish art collection.
Faruk Eczacibasi (Bulent’s brother and vice-chairman of Eczacibasi Holding) and his wife Fusun are also important collectors of Turkish and international contemporary art.
Banks seem to hold sway in the Turkish art world. “During the first decades of the Turkish Republic, state-owned banks were actually the only ‘clients’ artists had,” says Haldun Dostoglu of Galeri Nev in Istanbul. Their presence is still felt in the capital today through Akbank Sanat, an arts centre established by the eponymous Turkish financial giant, while Platform Garanti, a contemporary space initiated by Garanti Bank in 2001, has comprehensive archives of more than 16,000 publications.
Looming large above this Istanbul art map is Koç Holding, the largest conglomerate in Turkey, which established its cultural arm, the Vehbi Koç Foundation, in 1969. The Koç’s group’s decision to sponsor the Istanbul Biennial until 2017 reflects its clout. Indeed, plans by company board member Omer Koç to open a new space in Istanbul’s Beyoglu district in May have left art world commentators salivating. Works by Turkish art stars such as Gülsün Karamustafa and Halil Altindere will go on show in the new gallery.
These private initiatives have filled the gap left by the government’s arts inertia. Indeed, almost all Turkish art initiatives are linked to private capital (arts funding from the state is channelled mainly towards archaeology and heritage). But does backing from big businesses make for a healthy arts ethos? “The lack of direct government support has almost been a blessing in disguise, allowing the artistic community independence to criticise social and political issues,” says Eisler.
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| ‘Breakfast’ by Haluk Akakce |
So Taner Ceylan embraces gay sexuality in his photorealist paintings, the Hafriyat collective focuses on environmental concerns while the Extramucadele art group examines issues such as “the Islamist who is opposed to the movement of Europeanisation”. Hale Tenger, whose work is in the collection of Paris’s Pompidou Centre, dissects Turkish history and identity by examining issues such as immigration.
Such provocative material presumably inflames the Islamist-rooted governing Justice and Development party? Not so, insist most Turkish arts professionals, who are adamant that censorship is not an issue (apart from minor grievances in “one or two conservative provinces”, notes Melih Fereli, an art consultant working on the Koc “Arter” project). Eisler reiterates that even in other artistic pockets outside Istanbul, such as Izmir and Diyarbakir, contemporary art is not repressed.
But the question of whether Turkish art is more European or Middle Eastern in outlook proves controversial with museum professionals and dealers alike. Eda Berkmen, an Elgiz Collection representative, says that “talent not nationality” matters while Guleryuz observes that “the difficulty in categorising Turkey is reflected in the divisions between Sotheby’s and Christie’s. The former places Turkey in Europe with its dedicated London sales while Christie’s includes a smattering of artists in its Middle East auctions in Dubai.” Sotheby’s, which says that bidders from 22 countries competed in its 2009 sale, provides the startling statistic that 66 per cent of buyers at the same auction, which made £1.3m with 71 per cent sold by lot, were new to the sale room. Ali Can Ertug, senior vice-president of Sotheby’s, emphasises how “affordable” the sector still is, especially for young collectors: “It’s an emerging market; estimates for our 103-lot April sale range from £2,000-£3,000 up to £300,000-£500,000 for the work “Untitled” by Fahrelnissa Zeid.
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| ‘Un Altro Siren’ by Abidin Elderoglu |
International collectors are nonetheless starting to muscle in on the action. X-ist gallery counts museums such as the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich and Liechtenstein Museum of Fine Arts, along with corporate collections such as Danish firm Grundfos, among its clients.
The new Middle East North Africa acquisitions committee at Tate, which nominated Kutlug Ataman for the Turner Prize in 2004, is also eyeing up other Turkish practitioners. Meanwhile, Pi Artworks, an Istanbul gallery, reports that 60 per cent of its sales are now to international buyers. This foreign interest is reflected in the gallery quota of the Contemporary Istanbul fair last year, which included 54 Turkish stands and 20 foreign dealers.
Could this all herald a Chinese art market-style boom and bust? Vasif Kortun, director of Platform Garanti, offers some final words of advice: “We’re on the edge of an explosion. I tell artists, ‘Don’t sell all your works!’ Frankly, it scares me.”
‘Un Altro Siren’, ‘Glitch IV’ and ‘Breakfast’ are all featured in Sotheby’s London sale of Turkish contemporary art on April 15
