From Utopian hopes to political realities: two exhibitions in Istanbul

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Susan Noyes Platt visits the Istanbul Biennial

Two exhibitions are currently side by side in the Antrepo area of Istanbul, where conversion of port industrial sites to art venues expands each year. Together they provide contrasting, but complementary, perspectives on contemporary culture in Turkey.    

The Istanbul Biennial is now established as a sophisticated presence in the Biennial circuit of exhibitions. This year it was entirely in traditional ‘white-box’ venues (although inside was a maze-like installation of corrugated steel walls by Ryue Nishizawa).  The curators, Adriano Pedrosa and Jens Hoffmann, chose to create an elegant, museum-like exhibition based on a tight conceptual premise (Hoffmann has done this before, for example in  the wonderful  Around the World in 80 Days  exhibition at the ICA and the South London Gallery in 2006.) Hoffmann has a theatre background so the Istanbul Biennial has a dramatic component in the setting. We can wander through in any direction, get lost, go in circles, or perhaps find a way through the maze ( the curators suggested it evoked the streets of Istanbul).

 The point of departure for this exhibition is the work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957–96), who famously used conceptual formats and ‘untitled’ with a description in parenthesis, to make subtle political statements in the 1990s when the AIDS epidemic was upending the Olympian stance of the art world.   The Biennial has five group shows based on titles of works by Gonzalez-Torres, although his work is not itself included in the exhibition. In addition there are over 50 solo shows, each with a self-contained space.

There are five group shows. ‘Untitled (Abstraction)’, which is self-explanatory and was the least interesting. ‘Untitled (Ross)’ ─ referring to Gonzalez-Torres partner, Ross Laycock,  who died of AIDS in 1991 ─ addresses  identity, gay love relations, sexuality and loss. ‘Untitled (Passport)’  explores borders and geography. ‘Untitled (History)’ emphasizes the arbitrary writing of history. Finally, ‘Untitled (Guns)’  is provocative and confrontational.

The solo shows expand on the themes of the group shows, both directly and obliquely.  Strikingly, the curators included many historical artists.  The early art resonates with the contemporary art, which in many cases itself is embedded in history. For example, Alessandro Balteo Yazbeck and Media Farzin’s  Cultural Diplomacy, An Art We Neglect  (2008) recreated some of Alexander Calder’s mobiles produced during the Second World War, then pointedly contextualized  them in terms of American foreign policy.

‘Untitled (Passport)’ pursues  the theme in provocative directions with, for example, now useless identity papers for Palestinians (Baha Boukhari), barriers that look like modernist sculptures (Rivane Neuenschwander), and redrawing of the map of the world (Adriana Varejao’s  Contingent,  2000 and Hank Willis Thomas’  A Place to Call Home) .  ‘Untitled (History)’ is mostly about the arbitrary construction of history, with pieces that make reference to Iran, Hungary, Turkey, Lebanon, the US, and Chile. I loved Milena Bonilla’s video of Karl Marx’s grave, where he may or may not be buried; the camera crawls along the broken pieces on the ground with the ants.  Redacted documents also figure prominently, as in Glenn Ligon’s work based on FBI files or the Voluspa Jarpa’s  No-History’s Library, official documents of the Chilean dictatorship declassified by the US.

The historical work ranged from artists who died long ago, such as Edward Curtis, whose studio photographed the American Civil War or Tina Modotti, a photographer of the Mexican workers’ resistance in the 1920s, to artists still working with the expressionism of the 1930s, such as Elizabeth Catlett. Another variant was early examples of works by prominent contemporary artists such as Martha Rosler and Dora Maurer.

The Biennial as a whole requires intense viewing and reading:  in no case did what we see suffice for us to understand the work. The exhibition has evidently been shaped by conceptual art, sometimes with work that falls flat, but usually in a way that expands the significance of that approach.  The inclusion of art from many Latin American and Arab countries (with Palestine particularly strongly represented) , as well as the sparse number of US artists, speaks to our current geopolitical world and its shifting axis of power. Overall, the Biennial has been elegantly conceived and installed; the politics are pervasive, but subtle. The curators, as well as the artists, have looked to the past to understand the present.

The Biennial, as usual, included a baffling selection of Turkish artists: obvious celebrities (KutluğAtaman, who also showed nine important works, ‘Mesopotamian Dramaturgies’, at the Arter Space;  Aydan Murtezaoğlu, who creates iconic installations; and Füsun Onur,  the pioneering conceptualist) and  less-known artists (Yıldız Moran Arun, who died in 1995, Cevdet Erek, Özlem Günyol in collaboration with Mustafa Kunt, Ahmet Öğüt).

To fill in some of the significant gaps in contemporary Turkish art go next door to ‘Hayat ve Hakikat (Dream and Reality, Modern and Contemporary Women Artists From Turkey)’ at the Istanbul Modern. This exhibition, accompanied by a substantial catalogue, spanned from the early 20th century to the present.  Among the many outstanding contemporary artists were Tomur Atagök, Ayşe Erkmen, Azade Köker, Nil Yalter, Nur Kocak, Hale Tenger, Inci Eviner (who also opened a solo show ‘Broken Manifestations’ at the Mısır Apartment) Gülsün Karamustafa and Elif Çelebi. Atagök’s painting  Plastic Paradise or Don’t Soil  (1987) explores environmental concerns from a feminist perspective. In Tenger’s installation,  The School of ‘Sikimden Aşsa Kasımpaşa’  ( ‘I don’t give a fuck anymore’) (1990), a vat of dyed red water with swords hanging above refers to  both historical and contemporary violence. Gülsün Karamustafa’s  Postposition  consists of five quilts that the artist found in a bazaar. Their kitsch imagery addresses the contradictions of popular taste and traditional lives.

In the permanent exhibition galleries on the upper floor of the Istanbul Modern are two more works by Tenger and Karamustafa that could easily have been included in the Biennial across the street. In Tenger’s video  Beirut,  shefixed the camera on empty hotel  windows with flapping white curtains. As night approaches, the film ends with sirens and a loud explosion. Karamustafa’s overview of 20th-century Turkey takes the perspective of the contradiction of domestic activities by a family in an apartment near Taksim Square, while outside major political events take place. The tightly edited video conveys the tension of private and public, confinement and freedom.  The upper floors also provide an elegant overview of the history of Turkish art.

Because it is such unknown terrain for many of the curators, contemporary Turkish art has repeatedly been oddly represented at the Istanbul Biennial.  Fortunately, in the autumn of 2011, the Biennial is complemented by ‘Dream and Reality', as well as the permanent exhibitions at the Istanbul Modern.  Those museum displays demonstrates the ways in which both early modern traditions and the Istanbul Biennial itself have nourished contemporary art in Turkey. This amplification of the Biennial is particularly appropriate given the emphasis on history in the Biennial itself.