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Banu Cennetoğlu (b.
Ankara Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...
, 1970) is a visual artist based in
Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...
. She uses photography, installation, and printed matter to explore the classification, appropriation and distribution of data and knowledge. Her work deals with listings, collections, rearrangements, and archives. Cennetoğlu co-represented
Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
at the 53rd International Venice Biennale with
Ahmet Öğüt Ahmet Öğüt (born 1981 in Diyarbakır, Turkey) is a Kurdish conceptual artist living and working in Amsterdam, Netherlands and Istanbul. He works with a broad range of media including video, photography, installation, drawing, painting and print ...
in 2009. Her work has been shown at numerous international institutions such as Musée cantonal des Beaux-arts, Lausanne (2022);
Kunsthalle Wien Kunsthalle Wien is the city of Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city ...
,
Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
(2020); Ständehaus, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfallen,
Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...
(2019); SculptureCenter, New York (2019);
Liverpool Biennial Liverpool Biennial is the largest international contemporary art festival in the United Kingdom. Since its launch in 1998, Liverpool Biennial has commissioned over 380 new artworks and presented work by over 530 artists from around the world. ...
, Liverpool (2018),
Chisenhale Gallery Chisenhale Gallery is a non-profit contemporary art gallery based in London's East End. The gallery occupies the ground level of a former veneer factory on Chisenhale Road, situated in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, near Victoria Park, To ...
, London (2018); documenta14, Athens and Kassel (2017); Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn (2015);
Kunsthalle Basel Kunsthalle Basel is a contemporary art gallery in Basel, Switzerland. As Switzerland's oldest and still most active institution for contemporary art established in the year of 1872, Kunsthalle Basel forms a vital part of Basel's cultural centre ...
, Basel (2011);
Gwangju Biennale The Gwangju Biennale is a contemporary art biennale founded in September 1995 in Gwangju, South Jeolla province, South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half ...
, Gwangju (2014),
Manifesta Manifesta, also known as the European Nomadic Biennial, is a European pan-regional contemporary cultural biennale. History Manifesta was founded in 1994 by Dutch art historian Hedwig Fijen. The first edition took place in Rotterdam. One of t ...
8,
Murcia Murcia ( , , ) is a city in south-eastern Spain, the Capital (political), capital and most populous city of the autonomous community of the Region of Murcia, and the Ranked lists of Spanish municipalities#By population, seventh largest city i ...
(2010);
Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill, Minneapolis, Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in ...
(2007);
Istanbul Biennial The Istanbul Biennial is a contemporary art exhibition that has been held biennially in Istanbul, Turkey, since 1987. The Biennial has been organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV) since its inception. Istanbul Biennial p ...
(2007); and Berlin Biennial (2003). She is the founding director o
BAS
(2006–ongoing), an Istanbul-based artist-run initiative that collects and displays artists’ books and printed material as artwork. In Turkey, she is "best known as an apostle of the artist’s book."


Education

Cennetoğlu received a BA in psychology and then studied photography in
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
. From 1996 to 2002, she lived in
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...
where she worked on documentary and fashion photography for publications such as ''Purple'' and ''Self Service''. In 2002, she moved to
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...
where she studied a.o. at the
Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten The Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten (State Academy of Fine Arts) was founded in 1870 in Amsterdam. It is a classical academy, a place where philosophers, academics and artists meet to test and exchange ideas and knowledge. The school supports ...
and got involved with artists' books. In 2005, she moved back to Turkey. In 2016, she was a guest at the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program.


Selected works


The List, 2007–ongoing

Since 2007, Cennetoğlu has been developing ''The'' ''List'' in collaboration with
UNITED for Intercultural Action UNITED for Intercultural Action is a European network against nationalism, racism, fascism and in support of immigrant, migrants and refugees, in which over 560 organisations from 48 European countries cooperate. UNITED was founded in 1992 (offic ...
, an Amsterdam-based network in support of migrants and refugees. The work is a collection of data about thousands of immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees who died on their way to or at the border of the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
since 1993. It is presented in multiple forms, including posters, billboards, newspaper supplements, and public screens, in various cities, including
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...
,
Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...
,
Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...
,
Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...
,
Sofia Sofia is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain, in the western part of the country. The city is built west of the Is ...
,
Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...
,
Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...
o,
Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
,
Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
,
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
, and
Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...
.''The List'' featured data about 7,128 individuals when first exhibited in Amsterdam in 2007. As of May 2018, it includes 34,361 cases. Cennetoğlu does not consider the project "an art piece"; she does not edition it, sell it or sign it. Although she doesn't consider this project an artwork, she acknowledges a connection between ''The List'' and her artistic practice, as her artworks deal with witness-bearing. This work exemplifies how Cennetoğlu assumes different positions such as caretaker and a facilitator—not only an author—when she deals with lists and archives.
"Governments don’t keep these record for the public; they don’t want the public to see these records because it exposes their policies, so you have NGOs trying to put data together, and that data is incomplete and fragile, but there again someone has to do it. And I want to contribute to that with what I have and what I do—but not by aestheticizing it. You cannot represent this kind of darkness through art."
The 2017 edition was distributed as an insert in ''Tagesspiegel Berlin'' edition. The 2018 edition was printed and distributed as a supplement by ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' in a print run of 210,000 on
World Refugee Day World Refugee Day is an international day organised every year on 20 June by the United Nations. It is designed to celebrate and honour refugees from around the world. The day was first established on 20 June 2001, in recognition of the 50th ann ...
, June 20, 2018. Subsequently, it was exhibited in the form of posters at Great George Street in Liverpool as part of the
Liverpool Biennial Liverpool Biennial is the largest international contemporary art festival in the United Kingdom. Since its launch in 1998, Liverpool Biennial has commissioned over 380 new artworks and presented work by over 530 artists from around the world. ...
2018 and in conjunction with Cennetoğlu's solo exhibition at
Chisenhale Gallery Chisenhale Gallery is a non-profit contemporary art gallery based in London's East End. The gallery occupies the ground level of a former veneer factory on Chisenhale Road, situated in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, near Victoria Park, To ...
, London. On August 1, 2018, the posters in Liverpool were anonymously destroyed and removed. Some suggested that a council worker may have mistaken the work as an illegal poster and taken it down, but a spokesperson from the city council refused the allegation. The work was reinstalled on August 5, 2018, but was vandalised again shortly afterwards.


Catalog 2009, 2009

As part of ''Lapses'', the two-artist exhibition (with
Ahmet Öğüt Ahmet Öğüt (born 1981 in Diyarbakır, Turkey) is a Kurdish conceptual artist living and working in Amsterdam, Netherlands and Istanbul. He works with a broad range of media including video, photography, installation, drawing, painting and print ...
) curated by Başak Şenova for the Pavilion of Turkey at the 53rd International Venice Biennale, Cennetoğlu produced ''CATALOG 2009'' (2009), a book that mimics the format of a
mail-order catalog Mail order is the buying of goods or services by mail delivery. The buyer places an order for the desired products with the merchant through some remote methods such as: * Sending an order form in the mail * Placing an order by telephone call ...
, comprising 450 photographs organized in fifteen categories inspired by
stock photography Stock photography is the supply of photographs that are often licensed for specific uses. The stock photo industry, which began to gain hold in the 1920s, has established models including traditional macrostock photography, midstock photography, ...
: composition, color, assumption, negotiation, operation, vanity, adjustment, excursion, caution, love, seizure, exploit, act, invasion and replacement. Cennetoğlu created subjective categories to organize her photographs along with a few found photographs, challenging the assumed hierarchies of value. For the duration of the exhibition in Venice, the viewers were encouraged to order and download the featured photographs from the Internet free or charge.


04.09.2014, 2014

In the early 2010s, Cennetoğlu started creating bound collections of daily newspapers printed in one day and has produced different editions of this work in several countries, including Turkey, Switzerland, and Germany. The work offers a juxtaposition of information in an unconventional way, and questions the politics of representation through print media. The artist calls it a "re-contextualization" of the newspaper and "an almost monumentalization" as the archiving of printed matter is meant to be temporary.


Gurbet's Diary, 2017

Commissioned by documenta14, '' Gurbet's Diary'' is a work that comprises 82,661 words in mirror image placed on 145 press-ready lithographic limestone slabs. It draws from ''Gurbet's Diary. I Engraved My Heart into the Mountains'' by
Gurbetelli Ersöz Gurbetelli Ersöz (1965, Palu, Elazığ– 8 October 1997, South Kurdistan) was a chemist, journalist and later also member of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Biography Gurbetelli was born in Palu, Elazığ, and studied chemistry at the Univ ...
, first published in 1998 by Mezopotamien Verlag, Neuss. Ersöz was a chemist turned editor turned guerrilla—a Kurdish fighter who kept a journal as an act of resistance between 1995 and 1997. In her diary, she writes about her experience as a fighter as well as her observations in nature, poetry she likes, and the difference between being an intellectual and a fighter. She was killed in 1997. As part of the exhibition in Kassel, Cennetoğlu also created a related work, replacing the usual inscription of "Museum
Fridericianum The Fridericianum is a museum in Kassel, Germany. Built in 1779, it is one of the oldest public museums in Europe.
" with "Being safe is scary"—as a tribute to Ersöz.


1 January 1970 – 21 March 2018 · H O W B E I T · Guilty feet have got no rhythm · Keçiboynuzu · AS IS · MurMur · I measure every grief I meet · Taq u Raq · A piercing Comfort it affords · Stitch · Made in Fall · Yes. But. We had a golden heart. · One day soon I’m gonna tell the moon about the crying game, 2018

Cennetoğlu's most recent work is a 128 hours and 22 minutes long film work that comprises an unedited archive of all the digital images the artist has amassed between June 2006 and March 2018. The film features all the photographs and videos the artist took, the images she received on his phone and email, all of her video works, their documentation, exhibitions, as well as images from her private life. Considered as an act of "vulnerability and rebelliousness", the work is an investigation of collective histories through the images the artist has collected over 12 years. The title was inspired by
Clarice Lispector Clarice Lispector (, born Chaya Pinkhasivna Lispector (; ) December 10, 1920December 9, 1977) was a Ukrainian-born Brazilian novelist and short story writer. Her distinctive and innovative works delve into diverse narrative forms, weaving them ...
's The Hour of the Star, a novel with thirteen subtitles separated by or's.


Exhibitions

Selected group exhibitions include Musée cantonal des Beaux-arts, Lausanne (2022);
Kunsthalle Wien Kunsthalle Wien is the city of Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city ...
,
Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
(2020); Ständehaus, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfallen,
Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...
(2019);
Liverpool Biennial Liverpool Biennial is the largest international contemporary art festival in the United Kingdom. Since its launch in 1998, Liverpool Biennial has commissioned over 380 new artworks and presented work by over 530 artists from around the world. ...
, Liverpool (2018); ''Stories of Almost Everyone,''
Hammer Museum The Hammer Museum, which is affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles, is an art museum and cultural center known for its artist-centric and progressive array of exhibitions and public programs. Founded in 1990 by the entrepreneur- ...
, Los Angeles (2018); ''3rd Berlin Herbstsalon,'' Maxim Gorki Theater, Berlin (2017); documenta14, Athens and Kassel (2017); ''It is Obvious from the Map'', Redcat, Los Angeles (2017); ''The Restless Earth'', Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milan (2017); ''… und eine Welt noch'', Kunsthaus Hamburg, Hamburg (2016); ''Burning Down The House'', 10th Gwangju Bienniale, Gwangju (2014); ''Frozen Lakes'', Artist's Space, New York (2013); Manifesta 8, Murcia (2010); The Pavilion of Turkey at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009); 3rd Berlin Biennale (2008); 1st Athens Biennale (2007); and 10th Istanbul Biennale (2007). In February 2024, Cennetoğlu, alongside artist Pilvi Takala, released a statement regarding her decision to join Strike Germany and withdraw from her solo exhibition at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein e.V., which was scheduled to open in June 2024. The artists cited that the institution "declined to accommodate an artistic gesture we proposed, which aimed to align with the collective solidarity with Palestine." The artist is represented by Rodeo Gallery, based in
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
and
Piraeus Piraeus ( ; ; , Ancient: , Katharevousa: ) is a port city within the Athens urban area ("Greater Athens"), in the Attica region of Greece. It is located southwest of Athens city centre along the east coast of the Saronic Gulf in the Ath ...
.


Artist-run initiative

In 2006, Cennetoğlu initiated an artist-run project called BAS, which roughly translates as "print". The space currently hosts a collection of artists' books and ephemera on permanent display, which has grown from her own collection. The collection comprises three main categories: artists' publications, periodicals, and project publications with an online inventory. The artists' books in the collection are produced in large editions and circulate outside of mainstream art channels. This can be considered as an extension of her artistic research on the collection, organization, and dissemination of information. To develop the BAS Collection, Cennetoğlu prioritizes diversity over personal taste as she has an open acquisition policy when buying, accepting, and bartering artists' books. The collection is open to the public.BAS has hosted exhibitions, including ''Masist Gül'' (2011); ''Artists' books from Georgia and BAS Collection'' (2011); ''KORIDOR 1988–1995'' (2010); ''Artists' books by Sol LeWitt'' (2009), and more. In 2014, collectorspace, an Istanbul-based nonprofit, collaborated with Cennetoğlu and the BAS Collection to work on an exhibition with a newspaper project borrowed from the collection, titled ''Corrections and Clarifications'' (2001–ongoing) by artist Anita Di Bianco. Alongside BAS, Cennetoğlu collaborated with artist Philippine Hoegen to establish Bent, the publishing project that focused on commissioning artists' books by artists from Turkey. The first publication was ''Pavement Myth-The Life of the Pavement’s Wolf (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)'' by Masist Gül, followed by artists' books ''Takip/Poursuite'' (2006) by Aslı Çavuşoğlu, ''Bent003'' by Emre Hüner, ''Sahil Sahnesi Sesi'' (2008) Cevdet Erek, ''KILAVUZ'' (2009) by the artist collective Atılkunst, among others.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cennetoğlu, Banu 1970 births Living people 20th-century Turkish women artists 21st-century Turkish women artists People from Ankara Women video artists Turkish contemporary artists