THE TENTH ISTANBUL BIENNIAL
T
he Village People’s hijacked phrase, ‘Go West’ defines ‘the west’ as the site of unshackled utopias; of bounty reaped through conquering the frontier. The image of ‘the west’ today carries a somewhat different connotation, and Turkey, at ‘the edge of west’—bordering Iraq, Middle East unrest and the conglomerate strength of the European Union—adds yet another contemporary reading on this already convoluted metaphor. To consider the Istanbul Biennial one has to start with the city itself.
Internationally renowned curator, Okwui Enwezor observes, ‘Few places in the world represent the rift that marks conflicting cultural and political identification today—between Islamic religious commitment and secular democratic tradition—clearer than Turkey’.1 Historically the Istanbul Biennial has navigated this terrain, challenging audiences in their cultural and political readings of place. It was compounded this year by a change in government a month before the 10th Istanbul Biennial opened and the election of the first Islamist president Abdullah Gül in this largely Muslim but secular country. It signals a transition, a psychological shift, and one that is echoed in the Istanbul Biennial’s own reinvention as it celebrates its twentieth year and searches to redefine itself in changing times.
Chinese-born Paris-based Hou Hanru is the second Asian curator invited to present the Istanbul Biennial. The opening line of his catalogue essay reads, ‘We are living in a time of global wars’. It is an ominous rather than optimistic tone and immediately frames his exhibition as challenging, complex and politically inclined. But there is also an urgency in Hou’s title, ‘Not only possible but also necessary: Optimism in the Age of Global War’. It is as though he is urging us to act, prompted by a... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline