Hasan Kale is known to utilize small objects as canvases for his paintings. The Turkish artist uses fruit seeds, wings of taxidermied insects as backgrounds for his town Istaanbul. He depicts famous places and great architecture of the city. Nothing is too small for him. He can transform every small fruit into a piece of art. He uses his fingers as mediums of his work. See the videos for more information.
Aret Geçer , an Armenian artist based in Istanbul, doesn’t let just anybody enter his studio.
The reason for the secrecy is his series of works regarding Archbishop Mesrob II Mutafyan, the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, now incapacitated due to degenerative dementia.
Only several of the numerous works are ready to be exhibited. Aret says he won’t comment as to the reasons why he’s focused on the illness plaguing Archbishop Mesrob II until the exhibition.
“Even though the works have a political significance, I wanted to free them of political and church related conceptions. I am displaying the paintings of the archbishop solely from an artistic perspective. I want people to see the art in them as the primary idea,” Aret says.
From Yerevan to Istanbul
Aret is the only Istanbul-Armenian I have met who carries himself like a Yerevan native. After studying for a year at the Lyon Art Institute, Aret went to Armenia and enrolled at the Yerevan Art Academy.
Now, he walks past the luxurious stores in Taksim Square and when he reaches a small intersection he changes direction towards his art studio which is located in a building that stands out due to its Armenian architectural design.
What can you say about the level of education at the Yerevan Art Academy?
Those with no connection to art are accepted at this school tuition free through their connections. The really worthy students are turned away. The instructional methods are also outdated. You feel that you are obtaining certain fundamental things, but they aren’t relevant to the present era.
Do you mean that there’s a lack of good teachers?
Teachers exist but they have become disgusted with the job. Except for a few exceptions, they’re only there to make extra money. You would think that non-conformist young people would be enrolled at an art school, but in Yerevan you’ll find the opposite; the most conservative. Free thinkers are in the minority.
What’s the difference if we compare Lyon, Istanbul and Yerevan in terms of art?
We can’t compare them to Lyon because that city is in a totally different time frame. Istanbul tries to have the contemporary and exhibit it. They spend tons of money on contemporary art.
Your paintings are hidden away in this room where you work. Why don’t you at least show them in your studio?
I believe there are different ways to exhibit art. It should be done at a formal exhibition. Furthermore, half of the exhibition process involves hiding the works.
Cultural diversity in Yerevan is scarce, but in Istanbul you can meet people of different cultures and religions. Does this diversity influence your art, and if so, how?
I don’t feel such diversity. It’s probably because I’ve lived here for so many years. Such great diversity doesn’t exists here. There aren’t even sub-cultures anymore. It’s all been erased. There is only one culture – the Turkish culture.
In addition to painting you’re also a cartoonist for the Agos newspaper. Can you make a living doing this?
I live an average lifestyle. Here too, artists don’t live well.
Photos: Saro Baghdasaryan
via Istanbul-Armenian Artist: “There is no cultural diversity in Turkey” | Hetq online.
This October, Istanbul will commemorate Osman Hamdi Bey, the Ottoman master of museum heritage. Pera Museum is hosting ‘Osman Hamdi Bey and the Americans: Archaeology, Diplomacy, Art,’ which provides visitors with a chance to rediscover the great scholar’s personal history.
The show, which began Oct. 15, is displaying a rich selection of paintings by the Ottoman scholar, archaeological photographs and drawings from the 19th century. Painting by Osman Hamdi.
A new exhibition at the Pera Museum is shedding light on the first excavations conducted by American archaeologists in the Ottoman Empire and the relations between the two states through the prism of one of the empire’s most famous scholars, Osman Hamdi Bey.
Exhibited on the third-floor gallery of the Pera Museum, “Osman Hamdi Bey and the Americans: Archaeology, Diplomacy, Art” is based on the intersecting lives of painter, archaeologist and museologist Osman Hamdi Bey, American archaeologist and photographer John Henry Haynes and German-born Assyriologist Professor Hermann Vollrath Hilprecht.
Osman Hamdi Bey (1842-1910), was an important Oriental painter who made substantial and lifelong contributions to various fields of culture and arts such as painting, archaeology, museums and art education.
The show, which began Oct. 15, is being curated by Professor Renata Holod and Professor Robert Ousterhout from the University of Pennsylvania and is displaying a rich selection of paintings by the Ottoman scholar, archaeological photographs and drawings from the 19th century, letters, travel journals, and archaeological artifacts for the first time in Turkey. “The Excavations at the Temple Court in Nippur” and “At the Mosque Door,” two paintings by Osman Hamdi Bey that have rarely been seen before, will also be exhibited for the first time in Turkey.
Unique selection from Osman Hamdi Bey
The unique selection is on loan from the University of Pennsylvania, the Istanbul Archaeological Museums, the Istanbul Museum of Painting and Sculpture, the Fine Arts Museum Boston and private collections. Two unknown works of Osman Hamdi Bey discovered at the Pennsylvania Museum will also be put on display.
In addition to the exhibition, Pera Museum is presenting a special ode to Osman Hamdi Bey with works from the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation Collection in its Sevgi and Erdoğan Gönül Galleries as part of its new Orientalist painting exhibition, “Intersecting Worlds: Ambassadors and Painters.”
Trained as a painter and sent to France to attend the Institution Barbet in 1860, Osman Hamdi Bey was expected to attend the Sorbonne to receive a law degree. He was more inclined to develop his artistic talents, however, and he studied painting with Gustave Boulanger in the studio of Jean-Léon Gérôme. His first administrative experience came in the province of Iraq under Mithat Pașa from 1869 to 1871. He spent the following decade in Istanbul engaged in various cultural and administrative activities in which he often served as the intermediary between Ottoman and European governments.
Personal history
Most notable was his appointment as director of the Imperial Museum in 1881 and his continuous leadership of the institution until his death in 1910. In 1882, he established the Sanayi-i Nefise Mektebi (School of Fine Arts) located next door to the museum on the model of France’s École des Beaux Arts, where he served as director and professor of painting. During his 30 years as the director of the Ottoman Imperial Museum, Osman Hamdi Bey did more than any of his contemporaries to establish control over archaeological activity within the Empire.
More than 100 years after his death, the legacy of Osman Hamdi Bey lives on in the works of academics, institutions and museums. He continues to make headlines and serve as a topic of heated debates.
The exhibition, which is being jointly organized by the Pera Museum and the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, will continue until Jan. 8, 2012.
via Pera Museum commemorating Ottomans’ premier scholar – Hurriyet Daily News.
'Cabaret Singer Peruz Hanım' from the Zeynep Sabancı Collection is one of the pieces from the exhibition
The Greek Painters of Istanbul at the Topkapı Palace, a new exhibition at the famous Istanbul landmark, is bringing to light close to 100 works by Greek painters from the city. Although the native-born artists contributed greatly to culture in the late Ottoman era, there is little information on them in either the Ottoman or present-day sources
Istanbul’s Topkapı Palace is hosting a new exhibition featuring 100 pieces of art by Istanbul Greek painters who were influential in the late Ottoman artistic world.
“People from different faith groups have created very important works on Anatolian land. It is our mission to exhibit these works to the current generations,” Turkish Culture Minister Ertuğrul Günay, who is helping to organize the Greek Painters of Istanbul at Topkapı Palace show, said Monday during the show’s opening ceremony.
Günay also said his ministry had established very close relations with the leaders of various faith groups and that the exhibition was one of the results of those relations.
The works of the Greek painters are a part of Turkish culture, said Fener Greek Patriarch Bartholomew, who attended the show’s opening ceremony Monday. “We, as the Greek community and the Greek Patriarchate, are a part of this country, too.”
The exhibition, which is based on the book “Istanbullu Rum Ressamlar” (Greek Painters of Istanbul” by Mayda Sari, who is also the curator of the exhibition, features Greek painters who were born or raised in Istanbul. It brings together selected works from Greek Orthodox churches and private collections, as well as the collections of the Topkapı Palace, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and the Halki Theological School.
The minister also expressed his objection to the translation of the term “Rum,” which is used in Turkish to refer to the Greek Orthodox Christians living in Anatolia but often rendered simply as “Greek” in English, providing no differentiation between the group and the Greeks from Greece proper.
“‘Rum’ is the name of the [Greek Orthodox Christian] Anatolian population who lived on Ottoman lands. It is a part of Turkish culture, not a separate population,” Günay said.
The exhibition brings to light the works of painters who contributed greatly to Ottoman culture but on whom little can be found in Ottoman and present-day sources. Visitors will have the chance to see works by 19th- and early-20th-century painters and iconographers, such as Armenopoulos, Andreades, Andoniades, Flora-Karavia, İgum (Igoumenides), Economides, Xanthopoulos, Michelidakes, Petridou, Platonides, Savvides, Scarlatos, Sofroniades, Stavrakes, Vakalopoulos, as well as Konstantinos Kyzikinos (Kapıdağlı Konstantin).
Divided along thematic and chronological lines, the exhibition is comprised of approximately 100 works and includes portraits of sultans and high-ranking Ottoman officials, portraits of high-ranking clergy from the collection of the Halki Theological School, icons selected from churches, as well as views of Istanbul.
The event is being organized by the Directorate of the Topkapı Palace Museum and the Consulate General of Greece in Istanbul under the auspices of Günay’s ministry.
The exhibition will continue at the Topkapı Palace Museum Imperial Stables until June 30.
via Topkapı Palace welcomes works from Istanbul Greek painters – Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review.
The 1961 oil painting Santralistanbul The 1961 oil painting “Farewell Warsaw” by the Turkish painter Nejad Devrim.
Santralistanbul, an art, music and education space at the tip of the Golden Horn, is currently home to an exhibition that’s akin to an immersion course in modern Turkish painting. “20 Modern Turkish Artists of the 20th Century,” showing through June 19, features more than 400 works from the huge collection of the textile magnate Oner Kocabeyoglu, selected and arranged in collaboration with the writer and art critic Ferit Edgu.
In curating the show, Mr. Edgu divided the works into three sections: figurative and abstract paintings by artists like Fikret Mualla and Abidin Dino; pieces from the “Paris School” of abstract Turkish painters like Fahrelnissa Zeid (the lone woman in the exhibition), Nejad Devrim and Mübin Orhon; and works by artists including Ferruh Basaga and Burhan Dogancay, under the heading of “Geometry, Light, Music and Walls.’’
The editing process was a challenging one. “First I went to see the whole collection, approximately 900 pieces by 40 to 50 artists,” he said. After he whittled down his choice, “the collector went out and bought some more paintings, so about 40 new pieces were then added to the show.’’
The Paris School grouping covers a particularly interesting period for Turkish painting, he said, in that it shows how the Turkish artists, from a Western perspective, “caught up” to what was being done by the Europeans. (They did so, he added, by actually moving to Paris.)
But before today’s visitors lay eyes on any of these paintings at the museum (Kazım Karabekir Cad. No. 2; 212-311-78-09), the first thing they see upon entering the main gallery space is portraits of the artists themselves, taken over the years by the renowned Turkish-Armenian photographer Ara Guler.
“I was in Paris between 1950 and 1960,’’ Mr. Edgu said, “and all of the painters in this exposition were my friends, so I have a deep affinity for them and their work. Ara Guler was also a friend of mine from those days. And he has always been passionate about taking pictures of artists, Turkish or foreign, even Picasso and Dalí. Knowing this, I figured he had portraits of all these people in his archives. I was right. Of the 20, only 1 was missing, and luckily he was still alive, so Ara was able to shoot him, too.”
via Istanbul Show an Introduction to Modern Turkish Art – NYTimes.com.
