It is very difficult to write a theater play, and Turkey has been a mere spectator for years, watching the rest of the world write good theater plays. This, however, is changing. It has been several years since some independent and new theater venues opened in Istanbul. The important and significant thing about these places […]

Daniel Gervais is an art collector known in Turkey for selling his Mübin Orhon painting last year for a record price. It is always a mystery how the collectors reached those paintings. Sotheby’s magazine March 4- April 20 issue published an interview with Gervais and revealed really essential information about collectors and the paintings they […]

Until March 26 As an artist, Ayşe Erkmen is destined to discover the potential of empty spaces and walls and place spectators in front of them. Because Erkmen can create a masterpiece by using empty spaces and walls. The space is an experience for her. While Erkmen interrogates the social, economic, historical and architectural background […]

French writer Michel Houellebecq writes in his first book “Extension du Domain de la Lutte: “I do not like this world. I do not like it. The society in this world makes me sick.” Luo Qing may be among the few artists who can describe this “sickness” with his paintings. The painter turns this inner […]

On Jan. 13, 1898, the Parisian literary newspaper l’Aurore (The Dawn) published a 4,000-word article by French novelist Emile Zola, written in the form of an open letter to the president of France, entitled “J’Accuse!” (I Accuse!). The novelist blamed the government for injustice and inequality in society. Because of the popularity of the letter, […]

Gallery Espas is hosting new works by Ahmet Sarı, who plays games with colors and figures while creating movement on canvas. In Sarı’s images, an individual self is never happy, but is rather an injured, fatigued, depressed and even desperate subject powerlessly lost in the jungle of society. He draws animals in different figures and […]

HATİCE UTKANLONDON – Hürriyet Daily News Italian composer Donizetti’s world famous opera ‘Lucrezia Borgia,’ first staged in 1833, is now at the London Coliseum with the interpretation of film director Mike Figgis. The English director’s ‘Lucrezia Borgia’ raises eyebrows with its unique presentation of the erotic and dark side of this well-known opera by combining […]

The new exhibition “Display windows” will be on for the next month at Apel, holding a mirror up to window displays and their efforts to sell a wide range of products. The choice of objects for exhibition, and the way in which they are displayed, gives cause for pause. The works remind viewers of the […]

STARTING POINT: Arts, culture and the prime minister Friday, January 21, 2011Hatice Utkan A theater play can focus on anything. Usually in the old days, Turkish theater plays focused on political issues. Although it was very hard to do a proper or funny play with political issues, playwrights and artists tried very hard and in […]

January 8-28 Sezgin Güvel and Ahmet Yakar’s photography exhibition “Refinery,” which takes industrial labor as an artistic focus, is continuing at the Istanbul Association of Photography and Cinema, or İFSAK. “We would like to reflect the life of working people in the middle of melting metals, flames and smoke. We photographed how the red and […]