Group exhibition opens in collaboration with the Delfina Foundation

ISTANBUL

The exhibition borrows its title from Judith Butler’s classic book of the same name. It brings together artists absorbed in thinking about the body and structures of power in one of the most highly charged political laboratories of our time: Palestine.

Istanbul’s Galeri Manâ is collaborating with the Delfina Foundation for a new joint exhibition. The gallery presents “Bodies That Matter,” a group exhibition curated by Rebecca Heald. The exhibition takes place between Oct. 4 and Nov. 16, welcoming many foreign artists. Works by Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Jumana Emil Abboud, Bashar Alhroub, Mustafa al Hallaj, Jeremy Hutchison, Jawad al Malhi, Olivia Plender will be featured at the exhibition.

The term “body politic” is a key metaphor in political thought and for centuries has been used to liken the State to the human body. In visual terms, one of the most famous representations of this idea is the cover of Thomas Hobbes’ “Leviathan” in which the sovereign’s body is made up of many individual people, a literal manifestation of his belief in absolutism. Hundreds of years later, the idea, and ideal of a nation as a single body made up of many persists, both in political rhetoric and in contemporary critical thought as a resource of social and political struggle. The exhibition borrows its title from Judith Butler’s 1993 classic book of the same name. It brings together artists absorbed in thinking about the body and structures of power in one of the most highly charged political laboratories of our time: Palestine.

Bodies That Matter builds on independent research by curator Rebecca Heald and commissions stemming from Points of Departure, a year-long collaboration led by the Delfina Foundation with ArtSchool Palestine, ICA (The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London) and the British Council, which has presented works by artists working in the UK and Palestine on urgent contemporary questions around identity, history, and place. Rebecca Heald is a freelance curator and consultant. She recently curated “Points of Departure” at the ICA, London, and is currently working as a curator at Art on the Underground. Between 2009 and 2013 she was the Director of New Contemporaries, the UK’s foremost organization, working with new and emerging artists. She has worked across curatorial and education departments at Sadie Coles HQ, Tate Britain, and the Hayward Gallery. Before working in galleries she was the Arts and Features Editor at telegraph.co.uk. The Delfina Foundation is an independent, non-profit foundation based in London and is dedicated to facilitating artistic exchange and developing creative practice through residencies, partnerships, and public programming with a special focus on international collaborations with the greater Middle East and North Africa. www.delfinafoundation.com
Galeri Manâ, located in the Tophane district of Istanbul, is a converted wheat mill that dates to the 19th century. Founded by Mehves Arıburnu in 2011, the gallery seeks to establish an inclusive and interdisciplinary dialogue through its artistic program, special events, and publications. Galeri Manâ works with artists who stand on the edge of contemporary artistic practice by investigating at the boundaries of their mediums and expanding their conceptual reach.