Kortun in the most powerful list

ISTANBUL

According to the Art Review magazine’s most powerful figures in the contemporary art world list, Vasıf Kortun, become the 68th person this year.

Vasıf Kortun, the Director of Research and Programs of SALT, has been named as one of the 100 most powerful figures in the contemporary art world in Art Review for the third consecutive year.

Kortun was ranked 68 in Art Review’s annual “100 most powerful figures in the contemporary art world” list. Last year he ranked 86. The magazine described the SALT director as the “curator spearheading the Turkish art scene.” “From the outside, last year, Istanbul seemed just another ‘hyperambitious’ (Kortun’s word) art scene. And then the Gezi Park protests happened. Even before this, Kortun, as the director of research and programs at multi-venue nonprofit gallery SALT, was Turkish art’s de facto spokesperson to the rest of the world and prime instigator of this burgeoning contemporary art capital,” Art Review wrote.

“A 2012 New York Times article quoted an unnamed artist as noting that ‘there was before and after Vasıf.’ As unrest on Istanbul’s streets blew up, the former CSS Bard director gave commentary and insider analysis from the thick of it. He’s navigated the aftermath well.

About SALT

SALT recently stepped in to help stage an Istanbul Biennial undermined by the city’s volatile political situation, a reminder that if anyone can mediate between Turkey’s politics and the need to sustain its progressive art world, it’s Kortun,” it added.