This year’s Istanbul Biennial invited 54 artists from around the world to show work in 5 locations around the Beyoglu and Galata areas of the city. The theme of the show was “Istanbul”, and curators Charles Esche and Vasif Kortun presented work that directly related to the city as well as to more general urban, cultural and economic issues. Though most mediums were represented in some form, the show was dominated by video. I couldn’t possibly claim to have found merit in every part, nor could I manage to sit through all the hours and hours of video footage, but nevertheless it was a profoundly stimulating curatorial effort, and without doubt the most important show I’ve seen this year. It may be that the decision to locate the work ‘within’ the city, outside the grandeur of Istanbul’s institutions and sites was the most significant experiential influence. It’s not that the locations were particularly edgy or off the beaten track (Beyoglu is pretty trendy in parts), but the curators chose their locations so that visitors would encounter the city’s multiple contradictions, specifically the divide between rich and poor.
The experience of visiting the Biennial left this visual artist both inspired and somewhat disturbed. It’s always been obvious that New York and particularly Chelsea’s art world is a highly commercialized version of what goes for contemporary art. However it saddened me to realize that a show with such a strong political edge as this Istanbul Biennial could never take place in NYC. It’s not just the power of the art market or the conflict of interest inherent in the museum system that would prevent it, but it’s clearly the artists themselves too. From my perspective many artists in NY feel powerless to make an impact on this status quo — sometimes they are powerless, and sometimes they just forget how integral they are to the whole ‘deal’. Most of my discussions with artists looking round the Chelsea galleries either involve struggling to think of a show they liked, or just outright depression at what they’d seen, and not many appear terribly energized to try to change anything either. It’s all very cozy, but I wish more people would, or would be given the opportunity to, take their woolen slippers off.
Of course some of the art in Istanbul has been showcased in NYC and it’s not as if the show were a bunch of unknowns. Amongst others was the wonderfully humorous written interventions of Nedko Solakov and the always surprising work of Daniel Boshkov: for this show he created a perfume, “Eau d’Ernest” (Hemingway). Other standouts for me were Dan Perjovschi’s political wall drawings, and the brilliant video “Casio, Seiko, Sheraton, Toyota, Mars” by Sean Snyder documenting the implications of news viewer as consumer and photojournalist as looter. For more insight into this and the rest of the Biennial, please read T.J.Demos’s review in Artforum (Nov 05). It’s actually critical too, not just a jolly pat on the back for all concerned…
Rob Carter 11/09/05
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