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Istanbul began to host a new multi-annual exhibition, a Triennial other than its regular Biennial. Like Istanbul Biennial the new Triennial tries to bring together contemporary art works from all over the world. In contrast, this Triennial does not have a single curator, it does not carry a single theme and most of the artists are students.
This new, three year old exhibition is called: 2nd International Student Triennial and hosted by Marmara University, Faculty of Fine Arts. The participating students are coming from several universities in Austria, Australia, Azerbeijan, Belgium, Bulgaria, England, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Macedonian, Turkiye and USA. The Triennial was installed in the Asian side of the Marmara University campus and was exhibited all through June 2000. The man behind the whole project is Husamettin Kocan, an artist and a dean.
We all know that multi-annual grand exhibitions are created as a trick to name or classify “contemporary art” in one way or another. One needs to have balls to create contemporary art and naming your art work as contemporary is always risky. This is why there is no “Contemporary Art Museum” neither in Istanbul nor in New York. People are hesitant to use this name tag.
Each multi-annual exhibition model carries lots of problems and this Istanbul Triennial follows this rule. Still, I really enjoyed this exhibition and the artworks, more than any other show I have recently seen in Istanbul and New York. It was really interesting and fun. That is why I decided to write about it.
New York has a famous multi-annual exhibition which is Whitney Biennial. This year the exhibition made a very good PR with the help of the Mayor Gulliani but to be honest I haven’t see anything “fresh” other than Hans Hecke’s piece. There were masters in the show but they also repeat their work. But let me put it this way, the exhibition itself has been curated to bring together or collect all the well known, established artists, young or old. So, we happen to see an exhibition composed of works which has been around for a long, long time.
Of course, you can not compare the Whitney Biennial with Istanbul Triennial in terms of budget or with “big names” but you can compare the exhibitions in terms of soul and excitement. Art is very much related with experiment and if you insist on putting together the established stuff, you happen to repeat the cliché. To sum up: “No risk, no art”.
I liked the 2. International Student Triennial in three ways. First of all it was an interdisciplinary exhibition. Normally a museum or a curator never put this much media together; live performance, computer art, plastics and crafts. Putting them all together in an exhibition might create chaos but it might also create interesting results or coincidences.
Secondly, the Istanbul Triennial is installed in an art school. I still carry doubts about classical art education. However finished artwork and the unfinished ones together create a good dialogue between each other. I also visited Murteza Fidan’s studio and his students and liked the quality of the artwork. I could not easily differentiate between the Turkish students with the other international ones. (Whether this is good or bad is another discussion.)
Thirdly, the students in the exhibition had the courage to take risks. Once you are an established artist or an institution, it is not always easy to make mistakes. If one does not risk making mistakes, he or she would never have the chance to succeed. Now, I would like to go over some of the work and make some short comments on each of them.
For example we can begin with a pop icon. The piece “Air Jesus” was a computer image created by James Sadoski. He created a “Nike ad” by using the image of the Jesus and wrote at the bottom “Just do it” with Gothic letters.
Also from the Long Island University, Adrienne Turk, made a performance piece called “American Girl” in which she deformed her body, put on some weight and then pretended to strip tease. A small commentary of the artist on women aesthetics.
I liked the “Germany Pavilion”
prepared by the students from Berlin Fine Arts School, Weissensee because
it was not looking like a regular Germany Pavilion.
It was not clean and tidy and there
was broken glass on the floor on which you can hardly walk.
One of the multimedia work was called “20 Princess Islands in Istanbul” by Elisabeth Jugert and Nora Stalzer from Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. Two artists made a performance throughout the city with an inflated plastic boat and filmed their performance with a candid camera. In the exhibition the boat was sitting at the entrance with umbrellas and TV sets in it. It was quite cute.
There is always a distinction between arts and crafts. How can you transform art to craft or craft to art? A carpet to a painting or a carpet to art work? I used ready made carpets in a couple of my projects named “Feel Yourself at Home” in Istanbul and Graz.
In contrast Rovsen Guliyev, from Azerbeijan State University of Civilization and Fine Arts exhibited the wool carpet he made. This piece called “Fire Land” and with many others, reminded me that the division between craft and arts is as deep as the separation between east and west.
“Dialogue” was a video piece by Ivan Moudov from Bulgaria National Academy of Art. In that piece, the artist was smoking “pot” together with his friend in two TV screens facing each other. This peace reminded us of the sharing ritual of pot smoking. Bad things might also have good side effects.
London Collage of Printing and M.U.G.S.F Graphic Design Department made a joint project called “We are interrupting the program”. In this project artists played with text and images and created semiotic games. The group used photographic images and text from daily life and created different sentences like: “In the beginning Ottoman culture was oriental”, “But later, with communication and art, we excepted our individuality”, or “If a man is zorba love becomes a war.”
In the piece “Ten Commandments” by Cagri Saray we listen to our mothers give their daily advice like “dis macununu ortasindan sikma” (“do not squeeze the middle of the tooth paste tube”) and many others. In “Find Yourself” Dilek Birdinc cut her image from photos and paste them on others. In the video “Public Chaos”, Ergun Yildiz made a stop motion sewing video. The slow motion sewing became a jam at the end. All of the above students have one thing in common they are all from the Marmara University Fine Arts Faculty of Istanbul.
The last piece I’ll write about is King Midas of the ancient times who was famous for his magic costumes that only believers could see. Pinar Yesilnacar from Mimar Sinan University of Istanbul tried to replicate these costumes. We all see the kings wear uniforms but maybe they are all naked…
In the summer of 1999 several
major earthquakes shook Istanbul not only physically but also emotionally.
People still try to keep on living under a heavy mist of depression. All of
the TV ads try promote Internet with slang comedies. In terms of art, feudal
curators are still working with patrons of mostly Europe. In this atmosphere
the 2nd International Student Triennial was like an oasis in a desert. In
a broader context, this exhibition showed me that there could be good art
production anywhere in the world at any time, and under any condition. The
question is how to better communicate this art with each other and to a greater
audience?