The Türkiye Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia presents A Kiss on the Eyes, a solo exhibition by Nilbar Güreş. Widely recognised for her poetic, critical, and often witty engagement with cultural symbols, social inequalities, and questions of identity, Güreş works across a wide range of media.
Curated by Başak Doğa Temür, the exhibition brings together both existing works and newly commissioned pieces, including sculpture, installation, painting, and mixed-media works on paper and fabric. The exhibition takes its title from the Turkish phrase Gözlerinizden öperim, a traditional expression often used to conclude a letter or conversation.
The Türkiye Pavilion exhibition is coordinated by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), with the contribution of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Türkiye. The project is supported by co-sponsor Trendyol Art, airline partner Turkish Airlines, and production support from the SAHA Association. The Vehbi Koç Foundation is providing publishing support for the preparation of the exhibition catalogue.
A Kiss on the Eyes, Nilbar Güreş’s presentation at the Türkiye Pavilion, brings together multiple strands of the artist’s dynamic and multifaceted practice. Known for her poetic yet incisive exploration of cultural symbolism, social inequality, and identity, Güreş has developed a substantial body of work spanning photography, video, collage, and textile-based practices.
In recent years, her work has increasingly expanded into three-dimensional forms. Conceived specifically for the Venice Biennale, the exhibition features a series of large-scale sculptures and installations. Developed through an intensive collaborative process in Istanbul, these works were produced between December 2025 and March 2026 together with sculptors, metalworkers, tailors, and craftspeople. For Güreş, materials function not only as formal elements but also as carriers of memory and labour. These newly produced works are presented alongside selected pieces from earlier periods of the artist’s practic.
In her curatorial statement, Başak Doğa Temür introduces the exhibition with the following words:
“The exhibition unfolds through spatial relationships rather than a linear narrative. Works remain close to the ground, lean, hang, or hover. Instead of guiding the viewer from one work to the next, the exhibition invites them to slow down and become aware of their own bodily position in relation to the space and to others. Moving through the exhibition becomes a negotiation between distance and proximity, vulnerability and resistance.
Such an approach characterises Nilbar Güreş’s work across multiple media, drawing on lived experience to address questions of gender, migration, and belonging. Her practice is shaped by situations marked by displacement, racism, xenophobia, and discrimination based on religion and belief, not as distant subjects but as conditions that structure everyday life. She often focuses on moments where social norms and power relations become visible through bodies, relationships, and acts of looking.
Materials such as textiles, garments, domestic objects, and organic forms play a central role in her work. These materials carry personal and collective histories and are altered through gestures of care, humour, and resistance. Intimacy and political tension exist side by side, allowing vulnerability to appear without connotations of passivity.”
Nilbar Güreş
Nilbar Güreş (b. 1977, Istanbul) received her B.A. in Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Marmara University. She later completed her M.A. in Painting and Graphics at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, followed by further studies in Art and Textile Pedagogy at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna.
In 2023, she received the Outstanding Artist Award for Photography and a Research Grant from the Austrian Ministry of Arts and Culture. Her work has also been recognised with numerous prestigious awards, including the Hilde Goldschmidt Prize (2013), the Otto Mauer Award (2014), the BC21 Art Award by Belvedere Contemporary (2015), the De’Longhi Art Projects Artist Award at the London Art Fair (2018), and the Prix Maud Mottier (2021). In 2012, supported by the Austrian Ministry of Arts and Culture, she participated in the International Studio & Curatorial Programme in New York as an artist-in-residence.
Güreş’s multidisciplinary practice encompasses photography, video, film, painting, performance, sculpture, installation, and mixed-media collages on fabric. Beginning with personal and biographical narratives, her works expand to address broader social concerns, engaging with themes of social injustice, gender roles, and cultural identity. Through research, documentation, and witty figurative strategies, she poetically subverts conventions.
Nilbar Güreş currently lives and works between Naples, Vienna, and Istanbul.
Her solo exhibitions include:
Velvet Stare, Arter, Istanbul, Türkiye (2025); Space Uncurated #1, MLZ Art Dep, Trieste, Italy (2024); JUNCTIONS, Kunstforum Montafon, Schruns, Austria (2024); ATEM, Vienna, Austria (2021); Sour as a Lemon, Pasquart Kunsthaus, Biel, Switzerland (2021); Breasts by Rose, Vortic Art, London, United Kingdom (2021); Tell Me, Kunstverein Reutlingen, Reutlingen, Germany (2019); Lovers, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, Germany (2019); Erzähl’ mir., Kunstverein Reutlingen, Germany (2019); Overhead, Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz, Austria (2018); JesuitenFoyer, Vienna, Austria (2014); FO.KU.S – Foto Kunst Stadtforum, Innsbruck, Austria (2014); Pink Is The New Black, Osmos, New York, United States (2013); Self-Defloration, Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, Germany (2011); Nilbar Güreş, Undressing, MuseumsQuartier, Vienna, Austria (2011).
Başak Doğa Temür
Curator of the Türkiye Pavilion, Başak Doğa Temür was involved in the founding of Istanbul Modern, santralistanbul, and Arter in the early 2000s, a period during which Istanbul’s museum and cultural landscape was rapidly expanding. Between 2010 and 2020 she was part of Arter’s curatorial team and artistic programme board, contributing to exhibition coordination and management, publications, and the realisation of new productions.
Her experience also includes part-time teaching at Istanbul Bilgi University in the Film and Television and Visual Communication Design programmes. She has served on advisory boards and juries including the Türkiye Pavilion Advisory Board (2017–2019), BASE 2018, the CultureCIVIC: Arts and Culture Support Programme – Art Production Grants, and the pre-selection jury for the Berlin Senate’s Istanbul–Berlin Residency Programme.
The Türkiye Pavilion at the Biennale Arte and IKSV
The Türkiye Pavilion exhibition is coordinated by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) with the contribution of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Türkiye, the support of co-sponsor Trendyol Art, airline partner Turkish Airlines and production support of SAHA Association. The Vehbi Koç Foundation is also providing publishing support for the preparation of the exhibition catalogue.
Cover Image: A Kiss On The Eyes, Nilbar Güreş