ISTANBUL — More than three decades after the last tenants of Istanbul’s first Art Nouveau building left, the doors of the long-neglected Botter apartment opened again last month after a lengthy restoration. Crowds lined its newly gleaming facade to enter what was once the workshop of Jean Botter, official court tailor of Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II, and to view the contemporary art exhibition Musings, Truths which had been installed there for the grand reopening.
The revival of Casa Botter is part of a larger initiative by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality to convert pieces of Istanbul’s history – ranging from an ancient fez one-man hat factory late 19th century gasworks — into new cultural centers for the city of 16 million inhabitants. It also symbolizes a wider struggle for political influence in the world of art and culture as Turkey heads towards critical national elections on May 14.
“It is clear that today the most powerful weapons of those who manage the global system are the tools of culture,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in a late 2021 speech. Best known for prohibition, lobbyand even Stop artists and other cultural figures, his government also sought to supplant what the autocratic ruler lamented as the “monopoly” on culture long held by his political opponents.
In recent years, Erdoğan has presided over the reconstruction of the monument Ataturk Cultural Center, personally commissioning the first opera performed there; the conversion of an Ottoman army barracks into the huge Rami Library; and the inauguration of Biennial Yeditepea potential competitor to the Istanbul Biennale which aimed to showcase Turkish classical arts.
The president’s political opponents have denounced such plans as attempts “not to support culture, but to lead and dominate it”, such as Mahir Polat, deputy secretary general of the opposition-run Istanbul Municipality, said so during a press briefing in November. A former museum director, Polat said the municipality has “a duty to create new cultural spaces in the service of free expression”. In the past six months alone, he has spearheaded the opening of contemporary art venues in a former pumphouse, a trio of historic homes, a water cistern and an office building, in addition to Casa Botter .
Municipality projects have generally received a warmer reception from Istanbul’s artistic community than those promoted by the central government. “But deep down, I feel like their understanding of the role of culture is not very different from each other,” said artist Zeyno Pekünlü. Hyperallergic. “They all see culture largely as part of the touristification and promotion of the city.”
Since coming to power in 2002, Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party has accelerated neoliberal policies that have led to increased privatization in all sectors, including the arts. One of the results has been “the exclusion of politically engaged women and queer artists”, as well as Kurdish artists, private and public institutions, said Esra Yıldız, a member of the cultural management faculty at Bilgi University. from Istanbul.
Funding for major arts institutions and events in Turkey is dominated by large holding companies, and Istanbul’s arts venues are increasingly migrating to quasi-public spaces controlled by these corporations, including the Bomontiada entertainment complex, the Piyalepaşa İstanbul luxury housing and Galataport shopping complex. , where the flagship Modern Istanbul The museum reopened this week.
Private arts funders often do not share the government’s ideological leanings, but rely on its approval for their commercial interests in other spheres. “They played the waiting game, hoping that will change,” said artist and urban activist Nazim Dikbaş. Hyperallergic. He criticized the institutions supported by these companies for not speaking out on issues such as imprisonment of arts philanthropist Osman Kavala.
Institutional silence has also led many artists to unwittingly become part of the government-led “art wash” of controversial urban transformation projects in the central district of Beyoğlu, Dikbaş said. After a largely unsuccessful attempt to make its own mark on the cultural scene with the Yeditepe Biennale, the government changed tack, declaring existing arts venues to be part of its Beyoğlu Cultural Route Festival in 2021 and 2022.
“They just arrived and said, OK, now you are part of the Beyoğlu Cultural Route; as far as I know, only one gallery said no,” Dikbaş said. “This kind of approach is a way to neutralize and appease institutions by making them complicit.” Many other sites on the road were sites whose construction or redevelopment had been fiercely contested and opposed, including by art world figures and entities such as Galataport, Taksim Mosque, Narmanli Hanand the old Cinema Emek.
A similar cultural rebranding initiative in the predominantly Kurdish city of Diyarbakır attracted protests, “but here in Istanbul, we were frozen like rabbits in the beam of a flashlight,” said Pekünlü, who had a part in a show that was retroactively declared part of Beyoğlu’s cultural route. The government’s antagonism has “pushed artists into the same corner as institutions that don’t always show them the same solidarity”, she said.
Municipal initiatives offer the hope of creating a middle ground between the authoritarian cultural policy of the state and the private institutions opposed to the conflicts. But the Istanbul Municipality’s approach, including rapid openings of new venues and what some perceive as the lack of a transparent vision and strategy for the spaces, is sobering.
“So far Istanbul Municipality’s lineup has reflected the traditional art world, it hasn’t really given room for anyone who isn’t already an actor on the scene,” said the director. artist Marina Papazyan. Hyperallergic. They and others also questioned whether more exhibition space was really what Istanbul’s art community needed most amid skyrocketing rents and general economic unrest.
“The forums have shown that the main issues for artists are about poverty and representation,” Papazyan said, referring to a talk series they recently helped coordinate in their role as project coordinator at Depo, an arts and culture center in Istanbul founded by Osman Kavala. What forum attendees identified as key needs, they said, were things like studio space, support for independent initiatives, and social security and rent control policies that could help working artists. earn a more secure life.
“All these recently opened exhibition spaces are prestige spaces that you go to as a consumer: you may not have to spend any money, but you are still there as a passive recipient of the culture”, Begüm Özden Fırat, professor of sociology at Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts, says Hyperallergic. “But culture is something that happens daily; it requires meeting spaces, places where people can create something together.
