Reflecting on the Biennale in Istanbul
I found that in the years of the republic’s establishment, the ‘mission of art’ was to promote modernisation and public acceptance of the revolution. And, large family businesses in Turkey stepped in and began to sponsor and invest in the arts in the 1970s. In 1973, for example, IKSV became the largest private cultural institution in Turkey.
I realised that the Istanbul Biennial had slowly put the Republic of Turkey on the map of the global contemporary art world, putting many artists on a global scale and paving the way for the establishment of a truly global-oriented art scene in the city.
At the same time, it had a political context from the beginning, initially to present the Republic as a country producing contemporary art, ‘in line with global art trends’, and to present Istanbul as a candidate to become the centre of the international art scene.
Biennials of contemporary art
Art theorist Irit Rogoff hailed the Biennale as a ‘linking periphery’ that ‘bypasses traditional centres of art and culture’. Art theorist Irit Rogoff celebrates biennials as ‘linked peripheries’ that ‘bypass the traditional centers of art and culture’. Her belief in art’s power to change the world, to ‘transform the world we live in into a better place’. Some then argue that biennials convey controversy and difficult issues and that the main curatorial goal of biennials is to introduce new artists and their work. As a result, biennials around the world do not promote equality.
Istanbul Bienal 1987-2007 founding narrative and retrospective view
The Istanbul art scene into contact with the international art circuit and thereby helped artists to gain access to other art scenes to close the gap between the west and local art forms.
The fourth Istanbul Bienal in 1995, he was a major player in documenta, and coated the show under the title ORIENT/ATION.
The fifth Istanbul Bienal in 1997 as an independent curator. who had first a strong emphasis on women artist and the evolution of seal identity.
The sixth Istanbul Bienal in 1999, the passion and the wave.
The seventh Biennial edition 2001 Hasegawa considers the materialism, male domination, monetarism under the cultural and political instability in Asia and the Middle East and the Europe.
The eighth Biennial in 2003, ‘ make my own opposition to American foreign policy on Iraq one of the key references in my investigation’.
Hanru in retrospect stresses the necessity for artists to ‘ reconnect our artistic visions and practices with social realities’ of a ‘locality in transformation’. Artists not only worked in and about the city, he instillated them to intensify their interactions with inhabitants, who might not have been interested in the arts before.
Recent Istanbul Bienal editions
The curators’ collective What, How and for Whom in 2009 Istanbul Bienal. The artworks focus on ‘internationalization of the art world’ as a ‘new set of unequal relationships’. Erdemci aimed at creating a ‘space for the weakest ones and the most excluded’, and also to put forms of democracy into discussion.
The Istanbul Bienal in its contexts
The Istanbul Bienal has been from the start a project of secular-liberal powerful groups, wealthy family enterprises who could ensure the support by engaged artists and art professionals, much enthusiasm from those working with the cultural institution, and a growing compliance by Istanbul’s emerging art public. Almost all directors and curators of the Biennale have addressed the socio-economic processed to which Istanbul had been subjected, whether selecting works of art in Historical sites or in old industrial derelict buildings, by bringing artists in residence, or by making local protest a part of the show. In a metropolis charged with economic and social competition, social change, and with a violent recent history of bombings and assassinations.
Therefore, the Istanbul Bienal’s history and connecting it to the political and socio-economic contexts of metropolis, leads to an ambiguous picture.
