15th Istanbul Biennial: “A Good Neighbour” (Part 1)
By HG Masters
The Bosphorus shoreline of Istanbul in Tophane, with the Nusretiye Mosque on the right and the new Museum of Painting and Sculpture on the left, and the Topkap
After several agonizing years, Istanbul needs some serious healing—as I wrote a couple of weeks ago in a preview of the 15th Istanbul Biennial and other exhibitions that opened around the city last week. No single exhibition or biennial, of course, can cure or ameliorate the troubles of a city or country, but perfection shouldn’t be the enemy of productivity. It was at many moments over a week of openings and social events when the Istanbul art community displayed—and more importantly, genuinely seemed to feel—a solidarity that had eroded in the last five years, when societal pressures and the grievous political discord afflicting the country had seeped into the cultural community and fractured many crucial alliances.
