After breakfast we went through a rainy İstanbul by taxis to İstanbul Modern (www.istanbulmodern.org). We got an English guided tour by a work-student who had some problems to deal with this group of artists.
İstanbul Modern
İstanbul Modern is a private museum with a large collection of contemporary Turkish Art, mostly paintings. These works are influenced by European artists.
Fulya Erdemcy (left)
After İstanbul Modern we had a walk in Taksim, the modern part of İstanbul were we had a meeting with Fulya Erdemcy in the cafe of the Maramar hotel. She told us about her work as a curator and the whereabouts of contemporary art in Turkey. As a gift she offered the catalogue of İstanbul YaYa - art in public space and talked about the follow up: the İstanbul Pedestrian Exhibitions 2: Tunel Karakoy.
Platform Garanti
The next appointment was at the Platform Garanti ( http://www.platform.garanti.com.tr/plat_pop.html). An contemporary art space, with a documentation centre, and an artist in residence programme. Platform Garanti is financed by Garanti (Garanti is one of the biggest banking company in Turkey) and the artist in residence programs are partly funded by institutions abroad like the Dutch fund BKVB. Artist can not directly apply for a residency at the Platform but at the local funds. There are some special programs for artist in the region. Oyku Ozsoy, program coordinator from Platform welcomed the students and explained the importance of Platform.
Welcome by Oyku Ozsoy
Artist of the Platform residency programme should make a relation with the environment. Vasif Kortun director of the Platform is together with Charles Esche from the Van Abbe Museum the curator of the coming İstanbul Biennale which will take place in the autumn of 2005.
Also two artist from the Diyarbakır area, Sener Özmen, one of the artist of the video The road to the Tate Modern explained his work through an interpreter and Ahmet Ögüt a young artist from Diyarbakır showed the drawing book he made together with Sener Özmen. The work of both artist was strongly connected by the political situation in the south east of Turkey, as we later found out in our daily life.
Oyku Ozsoy showed us also a studio from the residency programme. Already our next appointment was waiting for us: Nanna Stolzer the cultural attaché from the Consulate General of the Netherlands. The embassy was so kind to support our stay in Diyarbakır.
Most off the students went for a döner or the Aya Sofia; because of the tight schedule lunch was cancelled.
Nanna Stolzer talked about the cultural infrastructure in Turkey and the role of private funding. All major art events are sponsored by private funding, very rich industrials as in the case of İstanbul Modern and the İstanbul Biennale. Or banks like the Garanti Bank (Platform Garanti). According to Nanna Stolzer the Netherlands should take a example of the Turkish way to deal with (big) art events. Fulya Erdemci explained that things are not always that easy. Like in the Netherlands the tobacco and liquor industry is not always welcome by all parties. Our visit to İstanbul was to short. Bassam missed the Aya Sofia which he sincerely regret.
Aya Sofia