The "Painting of Istanbul" exhibition, prepared from the İş Bankası Art Collection, has opened at Antalya Culture and Arts Center. Featuring Istanbul landscapes by master painters from Hikmet Onat to İbrahim Çallı, accompanied by poems, the exhibition offers a rich selection of insights into the quality of Turkish painting, especially for foreign tourists. The retrospective exhibition "Writing and Drawing Latif Demirci," dedicated to cartoonist Latif Demirci, is also opening to visitors.
Collecting, which has been treated as a serious business in the West for centuries, has only become a matter of importance in our country since the 1990s. I suspect this is partly due to the outcry voiced by cultural figures visiting museums abroad after seeing numerous works from our country. Turkey is a country with a history of collecting that hasn't even reached a century. Our most significant collections have been formed through the personal interests of a few businesspeople and the recognition by a few powerful institutions of allocating resources to art as a significant endeavor. We've had the opportunity to see these collections in many art museums that have opened since the 2000s, and we're delighted for our art. Seeing someone preserve art undoubtedly enhances our collecting culture. One such institution is Türkiye İş Bankası. The works in the İş Bankası Art Collection, dating back to the 1940s, are back on our radar with the renovated Türkiye İş Bankası Painting and Sculpture Museum for the centennial of the Republic. Building a museum is easy, but maintaining it is challenging. Simply acquiring works and hanging them on the walls isn't enough; it also requires serious curatorial work to keep them alive. This is where İş Sanat stepped in, bringing many important exhibitions to art lovers in Istanbul. Should other cities be left behind? İş Sanat is now bringing special selections from the collection to other cities, bringing the Bosphorus art experience to every corner of Turkey.
"LOVE OF ISTANBUL REFLECTED IN ART"
İş Sanat has presented a special selection from the bank's rich painting collection, previously exhibited in Istanbul and Ankara, which has garnered considerable acclaim. The exhibition "Painting of Istanbul", which featured the 19th-century Istanbul landscape, has now moved to Antalya. The exhibition, which opened to art lovers at the Antalya Culture and Arts Center (AKS) on September 5th, is particularly valuable for providing a quality insight into Turkish painting for foreigners visiting the tourism capital. Antalya residents will embark on a journey through Istanbul, where landscapes by many master painters, from Hikmet Onat to İbrahim Çallı, Feyhaman Duran to Nazmi Ziya, are accompanied by verses from poets such as Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu. I was very impressed with the setup of the exhibition, which I visited as a guest of İş Sanat. The selection of approximately 300 Istanbul landscapes, mostly dating from the mid-20th century, is presented to visitors on two separate floors of the AKS, starting from the Historical Peninsula and extending from the shores of the Bosphorus to Üsküdar, Kızkulesi, Haydarpaşa, and the Princes' Islands. One floor features Istanbul landscapes depicted and painted by master painters from the European side, and the other floor features views of Anatolia. The exhibition's curator, who also published the exhibition book, is The exhibition, prepared by art historian Prof. Dr. Gül İrepoğlu, was captivated by her mastery of the paintings, which reflect the magic of Istanbul, which unites two seas and separates two continents, as she described the exhibition. İrepoğlu described the exhibition as, "This exhibition is a reflection of love for Istanbul in art," and everyone who happens to be in Antalya these days should definitely see it. More good news for art lovers: the exhibition, which closes on October 19th, will next stop in Izmir.
THE EASIEST SACRIFICE WE'VE EVER GIVEN TO DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION: HUMOR
İş Sanat is presenting the retrospective exhibition "Writer and Illustrator Latif Demirci," dedicated to cartoonist Latif Demirci, who passed away in 2022, alongside "Istanbul's Picture" at AKS. Previously held in Istanbul and Ankara, the exhibition has attracted nearly 40,000 visitors. The exhibition, which spans the artist's work in Gırgır magazine in 1975 to his final cartoon published in 2022, is curated by the late Demirci's daughter, Yasemin Demirci, and journalist İhsan Yılmaz. Yılmaz, whom I met at the exhibition, explained that he had worked at the same newspaper since 1997 and had become close friends during this time. He also mentioned that he received the news of his passing in Antalya.
Yılmaz shared the following thoughts about Demirci's cartoons: “Latif's humor wasn't crude; he practiced boxing and humor with silk gloves. He would draw even the character in a situation you hated in such a way that it would take away that anger and soften you. I think we desperately need exactly that kind of humor today.” In response to my comment, “Latif Bey seems to me to have lived through the golden age of cartooning; it seems the era of cartooning has ended in recent years,” Yılmaz said the following: “He was one of the core members of the joke-making legend, yes. Of course, things have changed in recent years. There are no more cartoonists like Latif, and if there are, there aren't any outlets to publish them. I think it's something the internet has brought with it; humor has also shifted there. Just as newspapers are slowly losing blood and print media is going downhill, cartoons have also become the fastest-growing part of magazines. I think humor has become the easiest victim of the digital transformation.”
WILL THE DUST OF TIME CLOSE THIS BOOK?
Yılmaz, one of the figures who championed Demirci's legacy with this exhibition, gave a thought-provoking answer to my question, "So, what will become of this legacy in the future?": "Time will tell, after all... All our cartoonists, for example, emerged from Oğuz Aral's coat, but we see that no work has been done on him since his death. Someone needs to go to institutions and make proposals. When I brought the idea of this exhibition about Latif to İş Sanat, they were very interested, thankfully, and embraced it enthusiastically. But I don't know what the future holds. I think the dust of time will cover him, just as it covers all of us, unfortunately."
CHECK OUT WHICH PAINTER'S OWN WORK FIRST IN THE COLLECTION
Art historian Prof. Dr. Gül İrepoğlu shared with us a significant piece of information regarding our collecting history in the "Painting of Istanbul" exhibition. The information he provides also tells us the artist who owned the first work to be added to the İş Bankası Art Collection: “In 1939, İş Bankası received a letter from official authorities saying, ‘Pick a work from the State Painting and Sculpture Exhibition.’ Look at the beauty of this state policy… That was the year Türkiye İş Bankası began building its collection, which has now reached 2,700 works and is still growing. The painting with inventory number one that kicked off the collection is this painting before you by Hikmet Onat.” Onat, who lived between 1882 and 1977 and was one of the pioneers of Turkish painting, has a prominent place in the exhibition with his 1939 work, ‘Ortaköy Landscape.’ Two other works were added to the collection around the same time: Şevket Dağ’s ‘Interior of the Rüstem Pasha Mosque’ and Hasan Vecih Bereketoğlu’s ‘Boat and Houses.’ Acquired at the first State Painting and Sculpture Exhibition in 1939, these three works bear the signatures of three master artists of Turkish painting and demonstrate the quality of the first steps taken towards a sense of collecting.
Source: https://www.karar.com/kultur-sanat-haberleri/akdenizde-bogaz-esintisi-1989257