The Istanbul Biennial is a

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...

exhibition An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery, park, library, exhibition ...

that has been held biennially in

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

, since 1987. The Biennial has been organised by the

Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts The Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts ( tr, İstanbul Kültür Sanat Vakfı, İKSV) is a non-profit foundation, based in Turkey. It was founded in 1973 by seventeen businesspeople and art enthusiasts led by Dr. Nejat F. Eczacıbaşı The g ...

(IKSV) since its inception.

Format

Istanbul Biennial adheres to an exhibition model in which the curator, appointed by an international advisory board, develops a conceptual framework according to which a variety of artists and projects are invited to the exhibition. After the first two biennials realized under the general coordination of Beral Madra in 1987 and 1989, IKSV decided to commission a different curator for each edition, starting with the 1992 Istanbul Biennial directed by

Vasif Kortun Vasif Kortun (born November 6, 1958) is a curator, writer and educator in the field of contemporary art, its institutions, and exhibition practices. Kortun served as the founding director of several international institutions, including SALT, Platfo ...

. Istanbul's 13th biennial in 2013 was overtaken by political events; its theme was art in public spaces but was forced to retreat indoors after many of the scheduled venues filling with plumes of tear gas and water cannon as police and demonstrators clashed had been tuned into a battleground between demonstrators trying to protect the city's

Gezi Park Taksim Gezi Park is an urban park next to Taksim Square, in Istanbul's Beyoğlu district (historically known as Pera.) It is one of the last green spaces in Beyoğlu and one of the smallest parks of Istanbul. In May 2013, plans to replace the ...

. The 2015 edition presented new works by more than 50 visual artists as well as oceanographers and neuroscientists.

Past biennials

*1987 - ''Contemporary Art in Traditional Spaces''. General Coordinator: Beral Madra *1989 - ''Contemporary Art in Traditional Spaces''. General Coordinator: Beral Madra *1992 - ''Production of Cultural Difference''. Director:

*1995 - ''Orient-ation – The Image of Art in a Paradoxical World''. Curator:

René Block René ('' born again'' or ''reborn'' in French) is a common first name in French-speaking, Spanish-speaking, and German-speaking countries. It derives from the Latin name Renatus. René is the masculine form of the name (Renée being the feminin ...

*1997 - ''On Life, Beauty, Translations and Other Difficulties.'' Curator:

Rosa Martinez Rosa Martínez (b. Soria, Spain) is an independent curator, art critic and international art advisor based in Barcelona, Spain. Career As an independent curator, Rosa Martínez has organised international exhibitions, including the 51st Venice Bien ...

*1999 - T''he Passion and the Wave''. Curator: Paolo Colombo *2001 - ''Egofugal – Fugue from Ego for the Next Emergence''. Curator:

Yuko Hasegawa Yuko Gordon (née Hasegawa; ja, ユーコ・ゴードン; born 23 February 1951) is a Japan-born Hong Kong long-distance runner who competed mainly in the marathon. She represented her country in that event at the 1984 Summer Olympics and the 19 ...

*2003 - ''Poetic Justice''. Curator:

Dan Cameron Dan Cameron (born February 12, 1956 in Utica, New York) is an American contemporary art curator. He has served as senior curator for Next Wave Visual Art at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), an annual exhibition of emerging Brooklyn-based artists ...

*2005 - ''İstanbul''. Curators:

Charles Esche Charles Esche (born 1962, in England) is a museum director, curator and writer. His focus is on art and how it reflects, provokes and influences changes in society. He lives between Edinburgh and Eindhoven. Career Since 2004, he has been director o ...

and

*2007 - ''Not Only Possible, But Also Necessary: Optimism in the Age of Global War''. Curator: Hou Hanru *2009 - ''What Keeps Mankind Alive?''. Curators: WHW / What, How & for Whom *2011 - ''Untitled''. Curators:

Adriano Pedrosa Adriano Pedrosa is a Brazilian curator. He is the artistic director of the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP) and the 2024 Venice Biennale. Among Pedrosa's most well-known curated shows is ''Histórias'', a series of shows at MASP each examining ...

and

Jens Hoffmann Jens Hoffmann Mesén (born 1974 in San José, Costa Rica) is a writer, editor, educator, and exhibition maker. His work has attempted to expand the definition and context of exhibition making. From 2003 to 2007 Hoffmann was director of exhibiti ...

*2013 - ''Mom, am I barbarian?'' Curator: Fulya Erdemci *2015 - ''SALTWATER: A Theory of Thought Forms''. Drafter:

Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev (born December 2, 1957, in Ridgewood, New Jersey, US) is an Italian-American writer, art historian and exhibition maker. She is the recipient of the 2019 Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence. Currently, she is ...

*2017 - ''A Good Neighbour''. Curators:

Elmgreen & Dragset Michael Elmgreen (born 1961; Copenhagen, Denmark) and Ingar Dragset (born 1969; Trondheim, Norway) have worked together as an artist duo since 1995. Their work explores the relationship between art, architecture and design. Elmgreen & Dragset liv ...

*2019 - ''The Seventh Continent''. Curators:

Nicolas Bourriaud Nicolas Bourriaud (born 1965) is a curator and art critic, who has curated a great number of exhibitions and biennials all over the world. With Jérôme Sans, Bourriaud cofounded the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, where he served as codirector from ...

*2022 - (postponed 2021 biennial) ''Untitled''.

Ute Meta Bauer Ute Meta Bauer (born 1958). She is an international curator, professor of contemporary art and the director of the Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA) in Singapore. Early life and education Bauer was born in 1958 in Stuttgart, Germany. She studied ...

Amar Kanwar Amar Kanwar was born in New Delhi in 1964 where he continues to live and work as a filmmaker. Kanwar studied at the Department of History, Ramjas College, Delhi University (1982-1985), and at the Mass Communication Research Center, Jamia Millia ...

and David Teh

Past participating artists

9th Istanbul Biennial, 2005

12th Istanbul Biennial, 2011

The 12th Istanbul Biennial was curated by

and Adriano Pedrosa, and ran from September 17 – November 13, 2011. The shows spanned two buildings at Istanbul's Antrepo.

Group exhibitions

* "Untitled" (Ross) * "Untitled" (History) * "Untitled" (Abstraction) * "Untitled" (Passport) * "Untitled" (Death by Gun)

Solo artists

Past venues

The 2009 biennial took place at three venues on the European side of the city: Antrepo, or warehouse, No. 3 in Tophane; the Tobacco Warehouse, also in Tophane; and the Feriköy Greek School, in Şişli. All of the art selected for the 2011 edition was shown at one central location, in Warehouses No. 3 and 5 next to the Istanbul Modern museum.Susanne Fowler (September 15, 2011)
Istanbul Biennial: One Location, Many Attitudes
''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''.

References

External links

* {{Coord missing, Turkey Contemporary art exhibitions Culture in Istanbul Turkish contemporary art Art biennials 1987 in art 1987 establishments in Turkey Recurring events established in 1987