Istanbul — Istanbul’s new contemporary art museum is a study in contradiction. The museum offers stunning views of the Hagia Sophia Mosque on the European side of the city and Asia to the east, but at first glance it looks simple. It’s like a container piled up on the water’s edge. And both aspects of its design are on point.
Designed by architect Renzo Piano, this new space has welcomed its first visitors more than a month ago, almost 20 years after the museum dedicated to modern and contemporary art opened in the same building in a former warehouse. Years pass and it officially opens on Tuesday. position. (Then, for a while, they moved to a 120-year-old temporary space in the nearby Beyoğlu district.)
Culturally pivotal to the country after February’s devastating earthquake that killed tens of thousands and May’s difficult elections that cemented President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s hold on power for another five years It’s a moment. But more than that, the opening also celebrates the humble roots of the utilitarian waterfront museum.
On a recent spring afternoon, a crowd of about 100 gathered at the 10,500-square-meter (approximately 113,020-square-foot) five-story building as families and the city’s famous spoiled feral cats lounged in the adjacent park. Several of the opening exhibitions, each lasting about six months, not only celebrate Turkish contemporary artists, but also contemporary art from around the world.
The building’s open staircase, a feature of the piano, seems to invite visitors from the lobby to the upper floors and back to the roof. Its reflecting pools are already a popular haunt for chatty Bosphorus gulls.
The museum’s official opening this month comes just weeks after the president’s re-election, under whose leadership the media has been censored, art and music have been repressed across the country, and artists have been imprisoned. Several artists live in exile. By moving the country from the West (Turkey has failed to gain European Union membership) to the East and embracing its Ottoman past, Mr Erdogan has crossed the political spectrum to create more nationalist views among Turks. endeavoring to promote
The museum’s vision is also to show the country’s past as well as its present through art. Together, the works of many artists displayed in the gallery form a kind of tapestry of Turkish life, culture and art since the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the collapse of the country after World War I. increase. 100th anniversary of the founding of the country as a republic in October this year.
Umit Messi, curator of Istanbul Modern, said, “To organize an exhibition is to tell a story, and we are interested in all the social and economic changes since the 1940s, the founding of the Republic and the It tells the story of how it impacted us.” recent tours. “Each gallery is like a section for about a decade, so seeing the full permanent collection shows how Turkey has changed over time through the work of artists.”
That journey is exactly what was behind the museum’s concept when it opened in 2004. The museum is funded by two of his companies, Eczacibasi Group and Dogus Group-Bilgili Holding. Construction of the new building started in 2018 (cost not disclosed). It has always been the plan of the museum’s founders to bring the museum back to its waterfront home.
“The main idea of this building has always been transparency from the first floor, and the idea is to connect the sea and the park behind the museum with the park buildings of the 16th, 18th and 19th centuries,” said the director. said Oik Ozoi Sanyak of Curator of Istanbul Modern. “In this transparent ground floor of his, the intention was to make everything free and open to the public: the library, the café, the educational area.”
For Piano, Istanbul Modern is all about its location, and he wants to celebrate the building’s humble origins as a newly designed warehouse with an aluminum-panel façade along a waterfront area that has been transformed in recent years. I was thinking It has been used in restaurants and luxury hotels for many years. But the inspiration came rather from the natural environment.
“I love waterside buildings because water makes things beautiful,” Piano said in a recent telephone interview from his home in Paris. “And Istanbul Modern is about the dialogue between buildings and water.”
There were also some very practical considerations, such as safety in seismic zones. It’s a design element that has become even more urgent since the February earthquake devastation in southern Turkey and northern Syria. A structural model of the building, displayed in a room on the first floor, depicts the complex anchored by huge pillars that bend into the center of the building to absorb the shock of a major earthquake.
“We had to create a sturdy building that will stay there for centuries, especially in light of the massive earthquake that happened a few months ago,” Piano said. “Accessibility and safety are fundamental elements when creating places for people for art and music.”
From the beginning, a sense of community has been the museum’s mission, and its opening seems to have gained momentum, perhaps almost as a distraction, in a country that has grappled with the uncertainties surrounding the future of democracy.
“After the challenges of COVID-19 and the tragedy of the earthquake in Turkey, it is great to see the interest of the public, especially young people, in reopening the museum in our beautiful new home,” said Istanbul Art Museum. Chairman Oya Ekzasibashi said. It was written in an email today. “Our mission is to make modern and contemporary art accessible to everyone, and this new building will help us achieve that. The number has tripled since his 2018.”
The museum, at least for now, focuses on Turkish art in its opening exhibition.
“To show the transition and development of modern and contemporary art in Turkey, the permanent exhibition gallery will be opened, starting with works from 1945 to 2000,” explained curator Meshi during the tour. School groups roamed the halls. “All the artists you see in this gallery have studied or lived abroad, especially in post-war Paris, and many of them are members of the Nouvelle Ecole de Paris, which has supported many Turkish artists.”
“One of the major artists is Fahrernitsa Zaid, one of the most important women in contemporary art,” added Ms. Messi. “2017 solo exhibition at the Tate Modern in LondonAnd before the museum opened in 2004, her family donated over 30 of her works. “
Another gallery features the latest film,About dry grasswas a sensation at the Cannes Film Festival in May (Merve Dizdahl won Best Actress). The museum’s pop-up gallery showcases 17 works by 11 Turkish female artists, Always Here.
Turkish-American new media artist Refik Anadolu’s new exhibition, Infinity Room: Bosphorus, uses weather data from the Bosphorus to fill a room with swirling Lego-like images in blues, grays and whites. Create a. This is his three-part installation by Olafur Eliasson, in conjunction with ‘Your Unexpected Journey’, which appears to hang untethered in the air in the central stairwell. , is his one of two works commissioned for the museum.
From any perspective of Istanbul Modern, it’s all about the setting. In a city that is both Asian and European, the thread that unites desolation and vibrant modernity, antiquity and modernity is what, for Mr. Piano, has defined the city for centuries.
“If you’re an architect, you have to understand what’s so great about a place, you have to capture the spirit of the place. Istanbul is all about the water,” he said. “There is magic in the light of the Bosphorus.”
