Lonesome in Istanbul

Conversation
First published in: On One Side of the Same Water. Artistic Practices between Tirana and Tangier, Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, 2012

istanbul, collective

Gülsün Karamustafa

Gülsün Karamustaf, born in 1946, is regarded as one of the most important artists of the second half of the 20th century in Turkey, where her work has been a decisive influence on younger generations of Turkish artists since the 1990s. Her work has been shown internationally in numerous exhibitions. Karamustafa’s oeuvre stretches from the mid-1970s to the present day and encompasses various media, including painting, installation, performance art, and video. Her work focuses on questions of migration, politically-induced nomadism, pop culture, feminism and gender, and often provides a critical analysis of the Western view of Middle-Eastern countries. Rendered in a variety of media, these subjects permeate all phases and forms of her artistic work and are of unmistakable relevance to current debates. Recent retrospectives: SALT Istanbul, 2013, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, 2017.

Ha Za Vu Zu

Ha Za Vu Zu is an artist collective formed in 2005 and based in Istanbul. The collective acts with an absence of hierarchy to encourage the unpredictable within sound and vision. Ha Za Vu Zu sees itself as a hub of abundant collaboration and exchange of ideas. The group’s work lies somewhere between performance and agitprop, humour and the organization of offbeat evenings.

Banu Cennetoğlu

Banu Cennetoğlu, born in 1970 in Ankara, studied in Istanbul, Paris and New York before she was awarded a place at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam in 2002. A major solo exhibition of her work was held at Kunsthalle Basel in 2011 and she was one of two artists who represented Turkey at the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009. Cennetoğlu lives and works in Istanbul where she has also runs BAS, a non-profit project space in the city center dedicated to collecting, archiving, exhibiting and publishing limited edition artist’s books.

Lonesome in Istanbul