- The 2007 Istanbul Biennial
- Not Only Possible, But Also Necessary - Optimism in the Age of Global War
- Inside the Ataturk Cultural Center: How to Hang a Building Part 1
- Inside the Ataturk Cultural Center: How to Hang a Building Part 2
- Inside the Ataturk Cultural Center: How to Hang a Building Part 3
- World of Images: Entering Entre-polis
- Huang Yong Ping’s ZIL 135K
- NIGHTCOMERS ‘Dazibao’: an Interview with Curator Pelin Uran
- IMÇ Part 1: Checking-Out
- IMÇ Part 2: The Work of Art and Its Discontents
- Interview with Sergio de la Torre
- 3 Artists: Lu Chunsheng, Xu Zhen, and Zhu Jia
- The Best Offense is a Good Defense: Burak Delier’s PARKALYNCH Part 1
- The Best Offense is a Good Defense: Interview with Burak Delier Part 2
- ‘Global Warming’: Interview with Curator Hou Hanru
- About Matthew Schum
The 2007 Istanbul Biennial
In 2007 the haudenschild Garage collaborated with art critic Matthew Schum who traveled to the Istanbul Biennial to interview artists and curators including Burak Delier, Sergio de la Torre, and Hou Hanru.
My research explores the experience of contemporary art in urban exhibitions and installations. After hearing a talk by the co-curator Vasif Kortun about his 9th Istanbul Biennial and how he teamed with English curator Charles Esche in 2005, it seemed essential to go to the city. There I found not only the surprises that contemporary Turkish art has to offer, but the city itself. No place is like it, and in many respects no art scene deals with contemporary issues like Istanbul artists do. In short, the political complexion of Turkey adds dynamism to the social engagement defining art in the cultural capital.
In the following blog entries I have attempted to highlight what was unique about how artists and curators dealt with the intersection of art and social content at the 10th Istanbul Biennial.
Assuming the biennial to be symptomatic of contemporary art, my original research on the 9th Istanbul Biennial focused on the creative role of curating and a noticeable attention to the creative process from this perspective within the collaborative model of a biennial resides in the following entries.
Support from the haudenschild Garage provided a platform from which to consider these developments firsthand and allowed a way to pose and answer this question: How did the 10th Istanbul Biennial function as a strategy of encounter, within the more collective curatorial realm and the more focused projects of individual artists? My hope is that the blog functions as a document of this. –Matthew Schum
