Catch the rhythm of summer with art! August's featured exhibitions draw art lovers with works from diverse disciplines in inspiring venues. Now, let's take a look at the season's highlights!
August is one of the hottest times of the year, yet also one of the most needed moments to pause and breathe. Some enjoy a seaside vacation, while others stay in the city and embrace the tranquil pace of summer. However, one common destination is always effective in giving meaning to their place: art. This month inspires art lovers with a rich calendar stretching from Istanbul to Ankara to Bodrum. The exhibitions, which appear in the shadow of a historic building, in a gallery overlooking the sea, or in a quiet focal point created amidst the concrete, invite not only to observe but also to think, feel, and explore.
"Becoming One with the Place", Anna Laudel Bodrum – Muğla
Özlem Yenigül's second solo exhibition, "Becoming One with the Place," explores the relationship between the individual and space from various perspectives. "Becoming One with the Place," will be on display at Anna Laudel Bodrum from July 11 to August 3, 2025. Extending the concept of belonging beyond the home and questioning the connection established with second and third spaces, the artist explores both the physical and emotional boundaries of "place" in her works, produced using techniques such as relief printing, hand-tufting, and punch weaving. The exhibition centers on the idea of integration with space, creating a narrative that extends from the gallery to the exterior with a large-scale wall installation, inviting the viewer to a visual and intellectual exploration.
Date: July 11 – August 3, 2025
Address: Zai Yaşam, Halide Edip Adıvar Street, No:7, Çırkan Neighborhood/Konacık/Bodrum/Muğla
"Anatolia's Plant Heritage", Salt Beyoğlu – Istanbul
The Anatolia's Plant Heritage exhibition, located in the kitchen area of Salt Beyoğlu, sheds light on Anatolia's rich plant diversity through botanical illustrations. Featuring 80 works by 47 botanical artists from Türkiye, the exhibition also includes drawings, herbarium specimens, historical documents, and rare artifacts. The exhibition, organized in collaboration with the Botanical Artists Committee (BİRET) of the Flora Research Association, is part of the Botanical Art Worldwide 2025 program organized by the American Society of Botanical Artists. The selection, which will be on view until August 10, aims to highlight the genetic and cultural heritage of local plant species in the face of agricultural diversity threatened by industrialized production models.
Date: May 30 – August 10, 2025
Address: Arap Cami, Bankalar Street, No: 11, 34420 Beyoğlu/Istanbul
"On Strays, Rhinos, and Misunderstandings", YUNT – Istanbul
Guido Casaretto's solo exhibition, "On Strays, Rhinos, and Misunderstandings," draws on a historical narrative of the Ottoman sultan requesting a unicorn from the Doge of Venice. The exhibition focuses on a production process shaped by bronze casting molds the artist brought to the venue and waste materials collected from the YUNT area. This process, open to the audience throughout the exhibition, combines individual production and social interaction, while Casaretto's explorations of repetition, copying, and transformation bring together historical imagery and contemporary experiences. The tradition of equestrian sculpture, stretching from antiquity to the present day, is reshaped by the artist's interpretation into a riderless, anti-heroic form, stripped of triumphal narratives. The exhibition opens up a space for reflection on both personal memory and the shared cultural past of the Mediterranean.
Date: May 10 – August 15, 2025
Address: Hasanpaşa, Fatih Boulevard, No: 33, 34920 Sultanbeyli/Istanbul
"There's a Lot of Work to Do", Pera Museum – Istanbul
Organized as part of Pera Museum's 20th anniversary, the "There's a Lot of Work to Do" exhibition highlights the interdisciplinary production and intellectual world of photographer, translator, documentarian, and poet Samih Rifat. Curated by Serhan Ada, the exhibition brings together Rifat's photographs, drawings, notebooks, poems, and his interest in music to convey his intellectual journey. As the founding artistic advisor of Pera Museum, Rifat contributed to exhibitions by artists such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Josef Koudelka, and his interest in the ancient world and his understanding of translation are also prominent focal points of the exhibition.
Date: March 20 – August 17, 2025
Address: Asmalı Mescit, Meşrutiyet Street, No: 65, 34430 Beyoğlu, Istanbul
"Dancing in the Moonlight," Pera Museum – Istanbul
Canadian-born, New York-based artist Marcel Dzama's first solo exhibition in Türkiye, "Dancing in the Moonlight," sheds light on his multifaceted practice. Curated by Alistair Hicks, the exhibition highlights Dzama's use of chess metaphors and darkly humorous narratives to address topics such as his critique of government, environmental destruction, and the disasters caused by war. Combining diverse disciplines such as drawing, painting, dioramas, puppetry, costume design, stage design, film, fanzines, and sculpture, the artist presents a layered narrative in his works, incorporating references to popular culture and art history. The exhibition is a selection that reflects Dzama's broad interests and distinctive style, including collaborations with artists such as Raymond Pettibon.
Date: March 20 – August 17, 2025
Address: Asmalı Mescit, Meşrutiyet Caddesi, No: 65, 34430 Beyoğlu/Istanbul
"When Little Bells Ring," Maison Margi – Muğla
The exhibition "When Little Bells Ring," which will be held at Maison Magi, an art venue in Eski Datça, from August 5-26, 2025, brings together works by Doğu Çankaya, Evren Erol, and İpek Çankaya with an interdisciplinary approach inspired by poetry. The exhibition, organized in collaboration with the Halka Sanat Proje (Halka Art Project), features paintings, sculptures, drawings, and text-based works inspired by the verses of poets such as Arthur Rimbaud, C. Kavafis, Paul Éluard, Dylan Thomas, Thiago de Mello, Mustafa Köz, Birhan Keskin, and Didem Madak. This selection, featuring artists from diverse disciplines who maintain their personal approaches despite their shared reference points, reveals how the intellectual dialogue between artists is made visible through process-oriented production. Taking place in the historic atmosphere of Maison Magi, mid-summer season, this exhibition offers a unique encounter that opens up space for visual reflection in a poetic setting, building a meaningful bridge between literature and art.
Date: August 5–26, 2025
Address: Datça, Can Yücel Sokak No: 14 Eski, 48900 Datça/Muğla
"Encountering Fahrelnissa Zeid", İGA ART – Istanbul
İGA ART Gallery, Istanbul Airport's culture and arts center, introduces international travelers to Türkiye's significant artistic heritage with the first exhibition in its "Solo" series, "Encountering Fahrelnissa Zeid." The exhibition, which can be visited in the International Terminal, centers on a 1960 oil painting by Fahrelnissa Zeid, one of the leading artists of the 20th century, from a private collection. Enriched with documents, photographs, videos, and texts related to Zeid's life and art, the exhibition marks the first step in the "Solo" series, which aims to construct a universe of meaning through a single work. Curated by Prof. Dr. Marcus Graf, the exhibition invites the viewer to observe carefully and develop a deep connection with the art.
Date: May 30 – August 31, 2025
Address: Tayakadın Mah. Ulubatlı Hasan Street, No: 255 İGA Campus Arnavutköy/Istanbul
"A Route on the Edges of the Mind: Fikret Muallâ", Erimtan Museum – Ankara
The exhibition "A Route on the Edges of the Mind: Fikret Muallâ", organized in collaboration with the Erimtan Archaeology and Art Museum and Bor Sanat, offers a special selection from the Hancan Art Collection. The exhibition offers an in-depth look at Fikret Muallâ's life through sketches and gouache works from various periods, as well as narratives and critical texts from his relatives. An exhibition book, curated by Ebru Nalan Sülün and edited by Ebru Nalan Sülün and Pelin Okvuran, is also available for art lovers. The book invites visitors to understand Muallâ's art through his life story, and includes texts by Zeynep Yasa Yaman, Seda Yavuz, Necmi Sönmez, Nedim Gürsel, Youki Desnos, and Ayşe Nahide Yılmaz. Supported by a talk program and running until September 7, 2025, the exhibition aims to rethink the boundaries between Fikret Muallâ's art and life through both written archives and visual selections.
Date: February 28 – September 7, 2025
Address: Kale Mahallesi, Gözcü Sokak, No: 10 Altındağ, Ankara
"Living is a Beautiful Thing, Brother," Bursa Municipality – Bursa
The exhibition "Living is a Beautiful Thing, Brother," organized by the Bursa Metropolitan Municipality as part of the "Year of Nâzım Hikmet" and curated by Emre Zeytinoğlu, from May 9–September 9, 2025, presents a documentary narrative documenting Nâzım Hikmet's life, works, and political stance through text and visuals at the Şefik Bursalı Art Gallery. At the Tayyare Cultural Center, it brings together works by Ayşe Yaltırım, the Ahmet Merey Collection, and many other artists who reflect their emotional and intellectual connections to Nâzım, aiming to rediscover the poet's multifaceted world through art.
Date: May 9 – September 9, 2025
Address: Zafer Neighborhood, Ankara Yolu Street, Block C No: 1, Postal Code: 16080, Osmangazi/Bursa
"Walls Embraced", Simurg Inn – Çanakkale
The Walls Embraced exhibition, a collaboration between Simurg Inn and x-ist, located in the captivating natural landscape of the Kaz Mountains, presents art lovers with the works of 11 contemporary artists, including Ali Bilge Akkaya, Ansen, Aylin Zaptçıoğlu, and Murat Palta, in a setting far from the city and integrated with nature. Throughout the summer, Simurg Inn's stone-walled rooms, wooden terraces, and shared living spaces are reshaped by art, creating experiences that transcend the traditional exhibition landscape. Inspired by Aristotle's philosophical approach to the relationship between nature and art, the exhibition reveals the multilayered dialogue art establishes with nature and transforms the spirit of the space into a narrative element. This selection, ranging from political allusions to mythological references, offers a new context in which art can not only be viewed but also experienced alongside nature and life.
Date: Until September 2025
Address: Ahmetçe Village, No: 2, Ayvacık/Çanakkale
"TunState", Manufacturing-Hane – Bursa
Aslı Çavuşoğlu's solo exhibition, TunState, draws inspiration from nature's ways of self-preserving itself. Centered on the bark of the bursera fagaroides tree, which she encountered in Mexico in 2018, Çavuşoğlu's works transform into delicate surfaces bearing the traces of time, establishing a conceptual connection with the "tun" state, in which the microscopic creature Tardigrade suspends its metabolism. This exhibition, which first opened in Turin in 2022 and expanded to Museo Jumex in 2023, continues the dialogue established with the artist's previous works and takes shape in a new context. The exhibition reveals not only a production space but also a vibrant structure that brings together processes of waiting, decay, and transformation.
Date: May 17 – September 27, 2025
Address: Işıktepe BOSB Neighborhood, Kırmızı Street No: 1/7C 16140, Nilüfer/Bursa
"Kat'ı and Ebru Exhibition", Baia Bodrum – Muğla
Haluk Kürkçüoğlu's artistic journey, which began with his interest in traditional Turkish arts, took on a new dimension with the art of ebru in 2000 and with the art of kat'ı (paper carving) in 2005. The natural beauty of ebru, shaped on the water surface, and the meticulous craftsmanship of kat'ı art have created a unique aesthetic language in the artist's work. Through workshops opened in Manisa and Izmir, both the production and transmission of these two traditional arts are facilitated, and the artist's aim is to bring this rich heritage from the past to a wider audience. Forced to close his studio in 2020 due to the pandemic, the artist continued his work in Sığacık, where he lived for four years, and also embraced a life intertwined with nature by gardening for three years. He rekindled his passion for art, working in body marbling (the application of marbling to the body) in Antalya. Currently preparing to establish a new studio in Izmir, the artist continues to create original works by combining traditional marbling and Kat'i arts with contemporary interpretations, passionately working to both preserve and promote these two ancient arts on an international scale.
Date: May 17 – September 27, 2025
Address: Gündoğan/Bodrum/Muğla
"Dark World", Salt Galata – Istanbul
Salt's new exhibition, Dark World, is now available for viewing. Based on a long-term research process by artist Mike Bode and screenwriter Caner Yalçın, the exhibition focuses on the background of the film of the same name, directed by Metin Erksan and written by Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu, which was shaped by the social and cultural dynamics of the 1950s. The exhibition, which maps an era through the censorship, re-editing decisions, the manipulations of official ideology, and shifting narratives encountered during the filmmaking process, traces a work lost amidst incomplete recordings, different montages, and audio-visual inconsistencies. The narrative, constructed through archival documents, video installations, and film copies, treats Dark World not as a work of art or a feature film, but as a multilayered object reflecting historical and ideological interventions.
Date: July 23 – December 14, 2025
Address: Arap Cami, Bankalar Caddesi, No: 11, 34420 Beyoğlu, Istanbul
"Staged", Arkas Sanat Alaçatı – Izmir
Arkas Sanat Alaçatı opens the season with a striking selection of art focusing on the climate crisis with the exhibition "Staged." Curated by Billur Tansel and bringing together 86 works by 35 artists, the exhibition questions the artificial realities created by humans losing touch with nature and their ongoing indifference to the climate crisis. Inspired by the ideas of Arthur Schopenhauer and Jean Baudrillard, the exhibition centers on Piero Gilardi's artistic resistance to ecological disasters through his artificial landscapes. The diverse artist roster, from Berndnaut Smilde to Azade Köker, Murat Germen to Willem de Haan, explores theatrical replicas that have begun to replace nature, models of collective solidarity, and alternative futures through multilayered installations. Throughout the exhibition, viewers are also invited to explore, reflect, and act beyond an aesthetic experience through documentary screenings, archival resources, lectures, and participatory workshops that shed light on Gilardi's work.
Date: May 29, 2025 - January 4, 2026
Address: Alaçatı Neighborhood, 12500 Street, No: 2, Alaçatı, Çeşme, Izmir
Source: https://www.alem.com.tr/sergiler/agustos-2025te-kacirilmamasi-gereken-sergiler-1085531