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‘Tuzlu Su’ (Saltwater)

14th Istanbul Biennial

Ian Were
Eyeline 85
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The 14th Istanbul Biennial, ‘Saltwater: A Theory of Thought Forms’, was spread across this vast city of fourteen million, a city that, for most of its long history, has remained one of the world’s largest, most cosmopolitan and most visited. In her opening statement the Biennale curator, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, said this:

… you will spend quite a bit of time on salt water. There is a slowing down of the experience of art due to the travel between venues, especially on ferries. This is very healthy: salt water helps to heal respiratory problems … as well as calming the nerves.

 

I can endorse the first two points and to some degree the latter, although there was a certain anxiety involved in attempting to get to all the venues, especially those on semi-distant shores. Interestingly, it was Christov-Bakargiev’s 16th Biennale of Sydney in 2008 that first incorporated Cockatoo Island, a former prison and shipyard, as a major multi-site location—‘The magnificent sites of industrial archaeology’, as she put it at the time—together with the usual gallery and Walsh Bay pier venues.

With the Istanbul Biennial’s thirty-six widespread venues, showing over two hundred participants, clearly it was not possible to see everything in the time that most opening-week visitors had and, indeed, at the media launch, Christov-Bakargiev confirmed this adding (to paraphrase her): ‘This Biennial is not solely for us who may be here for a limited amount of time, but for locals, and locals who have plenty of time’. There were also around sixty additional parallel shows in over forty other venues, and many presentations—including programs of films and events for youth—were staged over the two-month period of the Biennial.

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Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Red/Red, 2015. Carmine-red from Armenian cochineal. Installation detail, Istanbul Modern. Photograph Sahir Ugur Eren. Courtesy IKSV Media.

Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Red/Red, 2015. Carmine-red from Armenian cochineal. Installation detail, Istanbul Modern. Photograph Sahir Ugur Eren. Courtesy IKSV Media.

Adrian Villar Rojas, The Most Beautiful of All Mothers, 2015. Organic and inorganic materials. Site specific installation, Yanaros Mansion/Trotsky House. Photograph Ian Were.

Adrian Villar Rojas, The Most Beautiful of All Mothers, 2015. Organic and inorganic materials. Site specific installation, Yanaros Mansion/Trotsky House. Photograph Ian Were.