Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB) in collaboration with the Consulate of Czechia is now presenting an extraordinary exhibition at the Basilica Cistern.
The grand exhibition titled "Gates of the Underworld – Touching the Space through Transition and Reflection; Vlastimil Beranek," which shapes the concepts of the underground, perception of reality and reflections, brings together the works of Czech contemporary sculptors Vlastimil Beranek and Jaroslav Prosek within the 1,500-year-old historical structure. Under the umbrella of IBB Kültür, the exhibition is curated by Dr. Mahir Polat and Miroslav Kroupa.
It features crystal sculptures placed in water, interacting with the two fundamental materials in the Basilica Cistern – water and stone – through glass, transparency and solidity. The exhibition, which is the largest international crystal sculpture exhibition held in Istanbul, will be open to visitors starting Thursday.
The exhibition, designed around themes of the underground, perception of reality, mythology, reflection and transition, draws on Plato's allegory of the cave, where people chained in a cave perceive shadows of objects reflected from the cave's entrance as reality. Vlastimil Beranek’s glass works, focusing on the past and present, interact with the cistern's water and stone textures, incorporating color and reflection into the dynamic reflection areas created by water and light in the Basilica Cistern. Jaroslav Prosek's works take viewers back to the era when the first glass was produced in Mesopotamia about 6,000 years ago and met with semi-fossil oak tree material from the same period, raising questions about ourselves, collective memory and the present time.
By removing the limits of a pure tourist visit with transitions and reflections, the exhibition invites visitors to refocus on the depths of humanity and to think about the "human condition" in the Medusa narrative, which has been separated from the sun and trapped here for 1,500 years.
