Category: Culture/Art

What’s happening in Istanbul (after 10 days Bayram holiday)?

FULYA ÇİMEN

ISTANBUL-Hürriyet Daily News

This week has been a tiring week after the long Kurban Bayram holiday. Despite the post-holiday blues, there is a whole docket of things to do and see in Istanbul over the next month.

For those who couldn’t find time to experience the restaurant scene in Istanbul because of the nine-day holiday, here is the chance to catch up.

Bird

Bird is a recently opened restaurant in Beyoglu/Şişhane by Aliye Turgay and Joost Rooijmans, the managers of 8 which was a very popular venue at its time. It’s the product of this couple who were bored of clichés. It’s suitable for fancy dinner, causal dinner, lunches and after-work diners.

Que tal?

Spanish for “What’s up?” Que Tal? is both peaceful and energetic with a fantastic menu. The concept is to taste everything with tapas. It’s a great place for those who want to have a long dinner with a lot of conversations and good food.

Limonata

Limonata is the new place of one of the biggest entertainment brand in Istanbul, Capamarka. It’s located on the terrace floor of the City’s Shopping Mall in Nişantaşı. The cuisine is “Guerilla Cuisine” with an Istanbul view and a smoking section with the terrace. Many residents of Istanbul have come to see most Capamarka ventures as being pretty successful, so why not to try this latest one?

ABBA The Show

This is the sold-out show that was performed in Royal Albert Hall London and Hollywood Bowl. Legendary music band ABBA, with its original members Mats Sture Ronander, Ulf Anders and Hilmer Andersson, performed along with 20 artists of the London International Symphony Orchestra, and this fantastic show is in Istanbul on Dec. 13 at 9 p.m. at the Haliç Kongre Merkezi (Haliç Congress Center).

The 12 tenors

The 12 tenors will be performed at the Maslak TİM Center on Dec. 2, 4 and 5. The show was very popular in the United States and Europe; now it’s in Istanbul. The most popular songs of Beatles and Barry Manilow are performed by 12 tenors, such as “You Raise Me Up,” “O Sole Mio,” “That’s Life,” “Nessun Dorma,” “Danny Boy,” “Imagine,” “Hey Jude” and others.

Sertab Erener & Demir Demirkan – Painted on Water

Sertab Erener, one of the most powerful vocalists in Turkey and a Eurovision Song Contest winner, will perform at Salon İKSV in Istanbul with popular musician (her husband) Demir Demirkan on Dec. 27 at 10:30 p.m. Some 14 Turkish folk songs from 14 different areas of Turkey, arranged with modern norms, will be performed at the show. The project consists of jazz, rock, funk, pop, instrumental fusion-jazz and many other music types.

Exhibition

Ali Teoman Germaner, a modern Turkish sculptor who goes by the nickname Aloş, is exhibiting his work between Nov. 11 and Dec. 10 at Gallery Işık in Nişantaşı. It’s strongly suggested to see his work with super-naturalistic and fantastic forms in bronze sculptures, stunning perceptions and patterns.

Intercity Ring Masters Olympia Final 2010

Those who want to see some sports are invited to the Intercity Ring Maters Olympia Final 2010 in Istanbul, to be held Dec. 24 6 p.m. at the Haldun Alagas Sport Complex.

The event is a festival of kickboxing with many fighters from around the world planning to attend.

November 30, 2010
Contemporary Istanbul to bring together global, Turkish artists

Turkish contemporary art is developing and expanding its horizons to the world. Thanks to Contemporary Istanbul, a fair bringing together 2,000 works by 420 artists for its fifth anniversary this year, the event is expected to be one of the artistic highlights of the year while also opening a new area for cultural dialogue

This year’s Contemporary Istanbul art fair will bring together 37 galleries from overseas and 43 from Turkey and show 2,000 works by 420 artists.

The event aims to question the meaning of art, being an artist, reveal the unifying characteristic of an art that can communicate directly and exhibit a broad, cross-cultural appeal.

Even though Turkish media would currently only like to attract everybody’s attention to Turkish collectors and wait to see who will buy what for how much from the fair, the Contemporary Fair is seeking to determine what contemporary art is and how we can put it into words.

The answer, ultimately, is easy; emotional experience is common to all humanity and art evokes emotion and people in Turkey need this. That’s why people are all attracted to art and begin to collect it.

Art evokes emotion in one individual, despite all the cultural specifics that determine that person’s reactions and it will reach out to many other individuals with varied cultural background.

The event for this year has chosen to open a new dimension in by bringing onboard Iranian and Armenian artists. While intercultural dialogues and Iranian and Armenian art are coming to the fore, Turkish art will stand at the center of this three-day event.

“Our aim is to make Istanbul Contemporary Fair a regional art hub. That’s why we are focusing on neighboring countries,” said the director of the fair, Emin Mahir Balcıoğlu.

Armenian art has a symbolic significant for Turkey, said Balcıoğlu. “We would like to create and increase awareness to Armenian contemporary art.

While the Contemporary Art Fair announced the value of the works of art, it also announced that this year will be a golden year for Turkish contemporary artists in regard to the total value of the works exhibited at the fair.

The total value of the artwork that will be exhibited at Contemporary Istanbul is 50 million Turkish Liras – 35 million liras of which belongs to Turkish artists.

Questioning the value of art

Ahmet Güneştekin, a prominent Turkish artist, is expected to break a new record with his artwork valued at 3.5 million liras.

Güneştekin has attracted attention with the total value of his works in the “Religions” series, which are valued at 7.5 million liras.

Compared to last year’s sales of 59 percent, this year it is expected that 75 to 80 percent of the works will be sold.

Chairman Ali Güreli said 70 percent of the sales would be by Turkish artists.

The golden year of Turkish Contemporary Art

Güneştekin, qho reflects interpretations from mythology and myths, including cultural symbols, will present his works at the fair in reference to the connecting effect of religions.

In addition to the large numbers of Turkish artists participating in the event, works from foreign artists such as Franz Ackermann, Andreas Gursky, Andy Warhol, Shirin Neshat and Sophia Vari, the wife of Colombian artists Fernando Botero, will be at Contemporary Istanbul.

The work of Mübin Orhon, which broke a new record recently with a sale of 1.08 liras will also be exhibited at the fair. Visitors to Contemporary Istanbul will have the chance of seeing Orhon’s largest abstract oil painting, which is 352 by 112 cm. The work was created in 1962 and recently broke a new record when it was sold for 1.75 million liras at an auction held by Antik A.Ş.

Setting out to take contemporary art to the masses and to make Istanbul a center for the contemporary arts, Contemporary Istanbul has made a substantial effort to carry Istanbul to its place among the world’s major art centers by bringing together galleries and artists from Turkey and abroad.

Receiving great interest both from national and international media, Contemporary Istanbul will have the opportunity to reach 12 million art lovers through various media channels.

Dialogue between cultures

Contemporary Istanbul has succeeded in becoming an annual event bringing together works from local and foreign artists with art lovers through constant conferences and exhibitions held during and after the event.

The conferences titled Dialogues – previously held in Istanbul and Berlin – was held in the German capital in October in cooperation with Akademie der Kunste, and will be held in Istanbul in December this year.

On top of that, Contemporary Istanbul has opened up to other Turkish cities with a new conference series titled Contemporary Art Meetings.

Conferences were organized in İzmir, Adana, Bursa and Ankara under the title Contemporary Art Meetings / Aesthetics – Value – Passion. The event, to be held in a different city every year, aims to make the interest in contemporary arts country-wide and raise awareness.

Contemporary Istanbul has prepared big surprises for its fifth anniversary, initiating cooperation with the Galleries Association of Berlin. Within the context of that cooperation, major contemporary art galleries from Berlin will come to Istanbul.

New Horizons: Iran

Hosting artists from different countries every year, Contemporary Istanbul last exhibited Syrian artists’ works at the New Horizons area. Now, for its fifth anniversary, it will host New Horizons: Iran exhibiting Iranian artists and Iranian art outside of Iran. Among the Iranian participant galleries to be included are Etemad, Assar, Xerxes and the Rosa Issa Projects, while the artists to be presented include Farhad Ahrarnia, Reza Derakhshani, Monir Farmanfarmaian, Parastou Forouhar, Taraneh Hemami, Alireza Adambakan and Samira Alikhanzadeh. Contemporary Istanbul will be also showing at Videocube works by artists from Iran and the Contemporary Arabian Art World.

Meeting with Armenian artists

Another surprise will be the Armenian artists invited to promote regional arts at Contemporary Istanbul. Armenian contemporaries like Karen Aghamyan, Tigran Kirakosyan, Felix Eghiazaryan will exhibit their contemporary art works in Istanbul.

Edge of Arabia

Contemporary Istanbul is also initiating cooperation with Edge of Arabia, which will bring together the leading representatives of the New Wave of Saudi Contemporary Art. The traveling exhibition of Edge of Arabia is coming to Istanbul for the first time. With a separate booth at Contemporary Istanbul, Edge of Arabia will be hosting symposia and exclusive artistic installations.

Designed to bring all dimensions of contemporary art discourse and art itself to wider masses, Contemporary Istanbul has introduced a new magazine to the publishing world. Published both in Turkish and English, the third issue of ICE (Istanbul Contemporary, etc.) will be out this November. Working up to become a global Istanbul-based magazine, ICE follows the same successful line of the first issue with its content and design.

November 30, 2010
To invite or not: Turkey’s dilemma with controversial figures

Fatma Dişli Zıbak, İstanbul

V.S. Naipaul

Turkey had a new-born debate last week over the invitation of controversial writer V.S. Naipaul, to the European Writers’ Parliament in İstanbul that was held on Thursday.

Before the meeting, some Turkish writers announced their intentions to boycott the event if Naipaul attended, citing the writer’s controversial remarks about Islam. Naipaul, a Trinidadian writer of Indian descent who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001, offended many Muslims in 2001 when he compared the religion’s effects to “the colonial abolition of identity.”

He said it “has had a calamitous effect on converted peoples” following his visits to Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia, claiming that Islam had both enslaved and attempted to wipe out other cultures.

Several Turkish authors had threatened to boycott the event after Hilmi Yavuz, a poet and academic, wrote in his column in the Zaman daily that it was inappropriate to invite a writer who had insulted Muslims. His criticism set off a wave of angry comments, prompting organizers of the event to politely tell Naipaul not to come to Turkey.

Novelist and academic Nedim Gürsel, whose book “Daughters of Allah” led to a storm of reactions in Turkey last year over claims that he insulted Islam, argued that Naipaul was subjected to “an execution without trial” in Turkey because many, who did not read even a single line from his work, made hasty judgments about the writer and launched a campaign against him.

Gürsel, who read two of Naipaul’s books following the outbreak of controversy over them, admitted that his arguments about Islam and its influence on non-Arab civilizations are open to debate; however, he was treated unjustly.

“I am not trying to act like Naipaul’s lawyer here to get him off the hook. What I am saying is, let’s read his books, understand them and then debate. Let’s not judge him solely on excerpts from his books,” Gürsel told Sunday’s Zaman.

Yavuz, who is said to have triggered the debate over Naipaul’s attendance by addressing Muslim intellectuals in his column “Will the consciences of our writers be at ease when sitting at the same table as V.S. Naipaul?” said Naipaul made the right decision by not attending the event.

“His conscience as someone who directed so many insults at Muslims would be disturbed by being among so many Muslims in a Muslim country. His absence from the event saved him from such a disturbance. It was the right decision,” Yavuz said.

In remarks to the media last week, poet Cezmi Ersöz defended Naipaul decision to not come to Turkey, explaining that his remarks on Islam were not simply criticism but tantamount to a “hate crime.”

“He is not someone who criticizes Islam in intellectual terms. He hates Muslims. Just as we cannot make insulting statements against Jews out of anger at the state policies of Israel, the same goes for this as well. Naipaul harbors a remarkable Islamophobia; he committed a hate crime,” Ersöz said.

Turkey’s test with controversial figures

This is not the first time that international figures who made controversial statements have sparked protests at cultural events in Turkey. Last month, Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica withdrew from the jury of the 47th edition of Antalya’s Altın Portakal (Golden Orange) International Film Festival as a result of protests against him. What made Kusturica a target of harsh criticism were his reported comments in support of the genocide of Muslims in Bosnia perpetrated by Serb forces.

Yeni Şafak columnist Fatma K. Barbarosoğlu approached the issue from another perspective. She said what makes the debate over the attendance of such controversial figures to cultural events in Turkey so heated is the fact that different reactions are given according to the background of the institution that invites them.

For instance, she recalls Kusturica’s uneventful visit to Bursa earlier this year and İstanbul’s Bilgi University inviting Naipaul earlier for another event. Both drew no protests from anyone and there was little, if any, media coverage.

Kusturica attended an event in Bursa upon an invitation of the Bursa Municipality, which is run by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), several months before the film festival in Antalya. This led many to attack the government because Culture and Tourism Minister Ertuğrul Günay was among those who protested Kusturica’s attendance to the festival.

“Such controversies are usually used to take revenge for past events,” Barbarosoğlu told Sunday’s Zaman.

She admitted that it is very natural for authors or poets to boycott events in protest of those they are highly critical of. Some people in Turkey just failed to respect the very right of the authors and poets embarking on a vigorous campaign to defend controversial figures, which in turn increases tension, she said.

via Today’s Zaman, your gateway to Turkish daily news.

November 29, 2010
How I got lost in translation and found my true calling

Translation can be an underpaid, anonymous job. Yet it is crucial for the cross-fertilisation of literature and for Maureen Freely, it has become a deeply satisfying life’s work

Maureen Freely
The Observer, Sunday 28 November 2010

Outside the Anglophone world, it is not unusual for novelists and poets to work at some point in their lives as translators. Though most will say that they did so mainly to subsidise their own writing, it is often clear, when you look at that writing, that it has been enriched by the imaginary conversations they’ve had with the poets and novelists whose words they have translated.

Istanbul: Memories and the City by Orhan Pamuk Buy it from the Guardian bookshop

If there is such a thing as world literature, it is because today’s most interesting writers are also well‑travelled readers and a lot of what they read is in translation. An up-and-coming Colombian novelist might be inspired not just by Borges, Conrad and Faulkner, but by contemporary novelists from Asia, Africa and Europe; his literary response to their work will go on to influence what his contemporaries on the other side of the world write next. These complex patterns of cross-fertilisation would end overnight if it were not for literary translators and the publishers who support them. So you’d think people would thank us, wouldn’t you?

via How I got lost in translation and found my true calling | feature | Books | The Observer.

November 29, 2010
İsmail Acar Exhibition to open at Istanbul’s Çırağan Palace

ISTANBUL-Hürriyet Daily News

The works of one of the most famous living representatives of Turk painting, İsmail Acar, will be on display at the Çırağan Palace Kempinski Art Gallery starting Dec. 1.

In almost all of his works, Acar employs the symbols that call to mind the era of the Ottomans. This time, he is presenting art lovers with brand-new work in his exhibition, entitled “Three Istanbuls.”

The artist has created a broad spectrum of beautiful pieces that stretch from the Islamic arts to the portraits of the sultans and from the gods of Anatolia to the palaces of the Ottomans. He hasn’t stopped at making his fame heard abroad and has played an important role in the promotion of Turkish culture.

Acar’s works have been exhibited in many museums from France to Japan and are to be found in various collections. He has had two previous shows at the Çırağan Palace – “Eclectic” and “Icons of the East.”

“Three Istanbuls” stands for East Rome, the Ottoman era, the Republic and contains messages for the future for 2023, the centenary of modern Turkey’s founding.

“Cities are like living organisms, the concepts that give them existence are their past,” Acar said.

The exhibition, which contains 50 works, can be seen 24 hours a day on the entrance floor of the palace until Jan. 4.

This year, the guest speakers that will attend the Çırağan discussions, which are organized at every exhibition, will feature Abdullah Uçman and Sema Uğurcan on Dec. 7.

The event begins at 7 p.m. and will focus on Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, an artist closely linked with Istanbul.

For information: 0 212 327 00 12

November 29, 2010
Patriotically-minded Bulgarians Renovate Iron Church in Istanbul

The domes of the Bulgarian St. Stephan church in Istanbul, commonly known as the Iron Church, will shine as new. Thirteen Bulgarian patriots from Plovdiv collected a generous donation of 40,000 euro to make a miracle come true. The biggest dome is covered with titanium alloy used in spaceships building. It is more durable than even gold. The initiators of the project alighted on the idea ten years ago as the unique cast-iron church facing the Golden Horn was in a deplorable condition. It has not been renovated or reinforced for decades.

The consecration service was performed by His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.

Eli Kumanova

via Arts&Culture – Patriotically-minded Bulgarians Renovate Iron Church in Istanbul – Standart.

November 29, 2010