In 1948, the English novelist George Orwell coined the word "Doublethink." Since its first appearance in "1984," Orwell's dystopian novel published in 1949, the mysterious portmanteau word came to define the desperate struggle of the individual against state ideology. This ability to hold two contradictory ideas in one's mind and believe in both of them is an act of rebellion. It is also the organizing idea behind an ambitious exhibition, perhaps the most exciting this summer, at Istanbul's Pera Museum.

"Today Doublethink is our only hope," says Alistair Hicks, the curator of the show, "and artists from around the world are showing how to develop not just doublethink, but polythink, thinking along multiple parallel or tangential lines at the same time."

In "Doublethink: Doublevision," Hicks connects two sets of artists together. First, he presents works of the Moscow Conceptualists, those rebels of the Soviet Union who, under the leadership of critic Boris Groys, unsettled accepted ideas about the balance between image and text in art.

Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Erik Bulatov and Nikita Alexeev, the leading figures of the movement join conceptualists from other countries. One of the most influential artists in this group, Joseph Beuys,has considered words as only "imperfect tools to try and achieve the perfect concept, an idealized world." Hicks points to how Beuys had "spewed out words and equations onto blackboard... and used words, much as Plato had before him, to build his concepts."

Hicks, an art historian who had run the Deutsche Bank Art Collection (the largest corporate art collection in the world) for 20 years, has little interest in limiting his exhibition in the confines of one country or culture. "The aim of this exhibition is to demonstrate that there has been a radical change of thinking all around the world," he says, explaining the international scope of doublethink. "Doublethink may have blossomed in Russia and other Communist states, but Big Brother has materialized in many different shapes and forms around the world, so artists have come up with an even wider range of coping mechanisms."

So we get an impressive list of artists who look for a new balance between text and image. There is Bruce Nauman whose video "Violent Incident" represents his anger about the cruelty of people. Then there is Nedko Solakov from Bulgaria. His "Top Secret" consists of 179 handwritten slips where the artist informs on himself, documenting how he had once collaborated with the oppressors of the Bulgarian regime. There is also a work by Ciprian Muresan, another artist from behind the Iron Curtain, who presents hidden engravings hidden beneath art history books. "There is a temptation to claim this as an end of history statement," Hicks says. "The artist may be demonstrating very physically that the line of history can suffocate, but it hasn't stopped him making a work of art out of it."

Marko Maetamm, the Estonian artist, explores the relationship between image and text in his "How I Became an Artist," as he recounts the story of how a high school girlfriend who has dumped him for an insensitive, shallow boy. This traumatic incident, from which he could recover only after many months, had led Maetamm to "become an artist as a form of revenge on everyone.

From China, the Yangjiang Group challenges the sanctity of the text, their impressive work documenting the creation and the falling apart of calligraphy. Keith Tyson, the winner of the Turner Prize in 2002, has composed a pyramid of wall paintings. Tracey Emin, one of the most prominent members of the Young British Artists movement, explores the balance between text and image with her 2002 work, "This is Another Place". Another work by Emin, "I know, I know, I know" looks into the fragile nature of communication.

Among other highlights of the exhibition are works by Anselm Kiefer, William Kentridge and the Raqs Media Collective. In Kiefer's painting, the memories of the Holocaust and Germany's modern history are explored through words and myths borrowed from that country's ancient culture. "No It Is (Anatomy of Melancholy)" by Kentridge combines the energy of words that dance on a book page with the dynamism of images. "Whenever the heart skips a beat" by the Raqs Media Collective features a clock that engages in word play, rather than fulfilling its customary function of showing time.

"Doublethink: Doublevision" also offers an impressive lineup of Turkish artists. Aslı Çavuşoğlu's "A Few Hours After the Revolution" reproduces a revolutionary graffiti modified by right wingers. Hera Büyüktaşçıyan's "Letters from Lost Paradise" investigates British poet Lord Byron's efforts to record the Armenian language in a Venetian monastery. The poet's struggle to save a language reminds Büyüktaşçıyan of her grandmother who has told her not to lose her language if she does not want to lose her identity.

Another impressive work here is Erdem Taşdelen's set of 48 differently colored business cards titled simply as "Erdem Taşdelen." This exploration of 48 different versions of Taşdelen's self brings the very concept of self into question.

In "A House of Letters," the video artist Ali Kazma tells the story of Argentinian-British writer Alberto Manguel's library. "Kazma's film puts the idea of doublethink into an historical context," according to Hicks. "Libraries are by definition a store of alternative ways of thinking, great mountains of contradictions, a reminder as Flaubert observes that 'stupidity lies in wanting to draw conclusions.'"

Both capitalistic and communistic societies have demanded their subjects think in a linear, either/or way. People have been asked to take clear stances and make simple choices in their public and private lives. Pera Museum's fascinating exhibition shows how art has flourished under this repressive mindset and how, through doublethink, artists worldwide have developed strategies to undermine the monolithic thinking mechanisms demanded by authoritarian states.