Contemporary Istanbul presents a new fair to Istanbulite art enthusiasts. With its main partner Akbank, CI Bloom brings together 23 contemporary art galleries in Turkey on the banks of the Golden Horn in the historical atmosphere of Istanbul, with a preview on May 10-11 and the fair on May 12-15
The fair has been galvanizing the art world from Tersane Istanbul recently. When I visited CI Bloom, the first work that attracted my attention as the highlight of the exhibition was "Topkapı" by Jannis Kounellis.
Kounellis is one of the most important artists of the 20th century. He is one of the founders of Arte Povera, one of the main movements that gave birth to today's art. But Kounellis should be seen as a revolutionary, innovative and pioneering artist within that movement as well. In 1969, he broke new ground with his work by placing 12 live horses in a gallery space. After that, Kounellis has always been the leading figure of 20th-century art with his lyrical, poetic works, always political, dealing with the human condition, approaching reality with very high sensitivity even in his highest abstractions.
Kounellis was also very interested in Istanbul. The texture of this city that combines histories, geographies and cultures has always excited him. Always grasping the materials, textures and objects with their own realities and further meanings obtained by transforming and abstracting, he tried to hear the cultural capital of Turkey in "Topkapı."
"Topkapı" is a reference and allusion to Istanbul's history, and its social and political past. As a person who always watched over the political and memorial reality of the space, Kounellis was moving from the cages that externalize the interior and include the exterior when he was creating "Topkapı."
Now this work and Topkapı Palace face one another with CI Bloom. While this creates a kind of symmetry, the multi-layered, parabolic structure of Kounellis' work also produces certain asymmetries. As the work approaches Topkapı Palace, it also moves away from it with its look. With "Topkapı," Kounellis goes far beyond the Orientalist approach that comes to mind. Against the image of the East, which Orientalists knit with masculine gaze and imaginary spaces, Kounellis presents a feminine language, expression and concrete reality stemming from the work's own toughness.
This is the main reason why "Topkapı" is able to resist time, place, audience and even itself in front of Topkapı Palace.
