All the works at the 15th Istanbul Biennial are worth being seen; but some are definitely not to be missed. Here is our selection of the seven works from the biennial that are a must-see.
Candeğer Furtun, İstanbul Modern
The master’s installation Untitled (1994-96) consists of nine pairs of a man’s legs and a hand. The work isolating these limbs from their functions and from the whole body they are part of, is reminiscent of areas dominated by male energy and masculine rituals.
Latifa Echakhch, İstanbul Modern
The Moroccan artist’s site-specific fresco, Crowd Fade (2017), refers to the dissappointment social uprisings produce when they remain fruitless. The viewer is invited to walk through a narrow corridor between two walls facing each other and two lines of debris that fell off these walls.
Volkan Aslan, İstanbul Modern
With his three-channel video installation Home Sweet Home (2017), Volkan Aslan questions the boundaries between the sedentary and the nomadic, the indoor and the outdoor, the safe and the unsafe situations, pointing out to the fragility of the current state of each and every one of us.
Leander Schönweger, Galata Greek Primary School
The young artist’s work Our Family Lost (2017) consists of a labyrinth composed of rooms that become smaller as the viewer proceeds. This dreamlike installation making the viewer lose his or her sense of direction also refers to concepts like alienation and the disintegration of social solidarity.
Erkan Özgen, Galata Greek Primary School
In the video Wonderland (2016) by the artist born in Mardin and based in Diyarbakır, a hearing and talking-impaired boy named Muhammed tries to tell, through signs and gestures, the story of his trauma within the context of the migration wave taking over the entire Middle East.
Mark Dion, Galata Greek Primary School
The artist, who is interested in ecosystems and the ways humans classify nature, creates two cabinets of curiosities titled Stubborn Weeds of Istanbul (2017) and Resilient Marine Life of Istanbul (2017). The first focuses on plants that have managed to survive despite intense urbanization in Istanbul, while the second addresses species that cling to life in the Bosphorus.
Tsang Kin-Wah, Pera Museum
The Fourth Seal – HE is to No Purpose and HE Wants to Die for the Second Time (2010) from the Hong Kong-based artist’s Seven Seals series is a multi-channel video installation of continuously looping words. The artist opening the gates into an existential questioning on the end of the world, is heavily inspired by religious and philosophical literature.
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