Vienna art fair showcases Turkish artists

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Six Istanbul galleries, including The Empire Project, MARS Istanbul, Galeri Nev İstanbul, Galeri NON, Rampa and Rodeo, will show a representative cross-section of the diversity of Turkey’s emerging contemporary art scene.

This year’s Viennafair The New Contemporary, which will open on Sept. 20 and continue until Sept. 23, will host six art galleries from Istanbul in an exclusive section dedicated to Turkish art, called “Diyalog: Art from Turkey.”

Co-initiated and supported by OMV for the second time, six Istanbul galleries, including The Empire Project, MARS Istanbul, Galeri Nev İstanbul, Galeri NON, Rampa and Rodeo, will show a representative cross-section of the diversity of Turkey’s emerging contemporary art scene. The fair will also feature an information zone about the art scene in Turkey. The project is curated by art critic Nazlı Gürlek. By supporting this fair and similar events OMV aims to contribute to the cultural dialogue in the realm of contemporary art. In addition to Austria and Romania, Turkey is one of the international oil and gas company’s key markets. Rampa Gallery will show work from Nevin Aladağ, Leyla Gediz, Selma Gürbüz, Nilbar Güreş, İnci Furni, Ahmet Oran and Güçlü Öztekin, and Galeri Nev will show photographer Nazif Topçuoğlu’s mise-en-scènes, Tayfun Erdoğmuş’s work and İnci Eviner’s installations. NON will show Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Erdem Ergaz, Extrastruggle, Sefer Memişoğlu, Meriç Algün Ringborg, Erdem Taşdelen and Güneş Terkol. The Empire Project will show Ali Taptık, Alp Sime, Sinem Dişli and Halil.

VIENNAFAIR is designed to showcase Vienna’s cultural heritage as well as its extraordinarily dynamic and increasingly multi-ethnic contemporary art scene. The fair takes on an international format that corresponds with the city’s status as a metropolis and with Austrian galleries that have, for many years, successfully positioned themselves in the international art market.

The exhibition format at Viennafair makes an important first step toward an enhanced international presence in the gallery scene and, above all, among art collectors around the world. The participation of renowned international and national galleries, in combination with the presentation of younger galleries that act as forerunners in contemporary art production, enables the fair to offer visitors the unique opportunity to experience the work of established artists alongside that of emerging artists and new talents – and a chance for buyers to expand their own art collections in both directions.
“The idea of Europe as an expanded economic and cultural space, beyond the borders of the EU, is central in the further development of the focus on Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe, an idea that once again demonstrates Viennafair New Contemporary’s unique position in the international art fair circuit,” the fair’s statement reads.

In addition to numerous eastern European galleries, many of which began their international careers at earlier editions of Viennafair, the fair will also present Istanbul’s up-and-coming gallery scene, as well as both renowned and young galleries from St. Petersburg and Moscow, and a special showcase of art from the Caucasus region, which is still far removed from the art market. This creates an unrivaled and lively platform for exchange between the still very Western-oriented art market and regions in which totally new forms of cooperation between art, economy, and civil society are currently blossoming. The fair offers the public further information about the focus regions and the opportunity to initiate new cooperation between individual branches of art.

Artists from Kazakhstan to Georgia

There fair will also include side programs such as “Vienna Quintet,” “Vienna Talks,” “Vienna Sonic,” “Vienna Live” and “Vienna Click.” Vienna Quintet is a special exhibition featuring work by artists Leyla Aliyeva, Khanlar Gasimov and Altay Sadigzadeh from Azerbaijan, Tutu Kiladze and Ketuta Alexi Meskhishvili from Georgia, the artist duo Galim Madanov and Zauresh Terekbay from Kazakhstan, A.R.C.H. and Sergey Zhdanovich from Belarus, and Sergey Bratkov from the Ukraine, and presenting the latest developments in the contemporary art scenes of these former Soviet republics. This exhibition by Christina Steinbrecher and Vita Zaman, the artistic directors of VIENNAFAIR The New Contemporary, was organized in close cooperation with curators and art institutions in these countries.
In her graphic works, paintings, and sculptures, Leyla Aliyeva deals extensively with the traditions of her homeland Azerbaijan. In addition to her own artistic activities, she serves as the chair of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation – a charitable and culturally and politically engaged non-profit organization – supporting young artists from Azerbaijan who live and study in Russia and in Europe.

In his installations and performances Khanlar Gasimov uses materials such as rice, plastic bottles, jute bags or human hair to elicit a melancholic cultural nostalgia against the backdrop of the enormous sociopolitical and cultural changes taking place in Azerbaijan. Altay Sadigzadeh “sneaks” miniature scenes of everyday life into his abstract paintings and drawings. He forges exciting combinations of his post-modern mythical reflections on society with surreal images that derive their force from caricatures and comics. k HDN