Contemporary Istanbul announces 2015 program

ISTANBUL

Contemporary Istanbul has announced the list of galleries and participants for its milestone 10th anniversary, with its “Focus” section this year on  Tehran and CI Plugin New Media and Digitals Arts Section of the fair.

The fair will take place at the Istanbul Congress Center (ICC) and the Istanbul Convention and Exhibition Center (ICEC) between Nov. 12 and 15. 

For its 10th edition, Contemporary Istanbul will bring together 97 galleries, including leading and emerging galleries from 28 cities across 24 countries. Twenty-three galleries are participating in the fair for the first time.

“CI Focus,” which showcases a cutting-edge selection of contemporary art from a specific geographic region or a relevant subject, will this year present outstanding galleries from Tehran with works by emerging and established artists such as Nasser Bakhshi from the Aaran Gallery, Babak Roshaninejad from the Assar Gallery, Ali Akbar Sadeghi from the Shirin Gallery, and Houman Mortazavi from the Dastan’s Basement. 

Meanwhile, “Plugin,” Contemporary Istanbul’s section dedicated to new media, is this year in its 3rd edition. The section’s theme this year is “X-CHANGE,” aiming to create interactive and transformative relationships between conventional and innovative, physical and digital.

The fair’s press release says the section aims to rethink “alternative ways of change, reusing, remixing and revaluing the waste/d and developing the sharing culture through science, art and technology.” 

The program of Contemporary Istanbul’s talk series, “CI Dialogues,” will include sessions on the global art market, the context and management of art, current tendencies of curatorial practice at biennials, and curating and collecting new media art.