Muntadas’ workshop brings art from three continents to İstanbul

The exhibition -- made up of paintings, photographs, installations, videos and even books -- reflects the urban, structural, cultural and anthropological aspects of İstanbul either by comparing it with other world cities or giving examples from İstanbul itself or by criticizing certain aspects of İstanbul. Thirty-six young artists from Cambridge, Venice and İstanbul, all of whom participated in Muntadas’ workshop, exhibit their works under the curatorship of Chiara Vecchiarelli.

Lives and works in İstanbul

The project has been going on since November 2008 and will continue until December 2010.

As part of the project, six artists from the European Union -- Muntadas, Remo Salvadori, Victor Burgin, Peter Kogler, George Lappas and Sophie Calle -- who have completed large-scale visual art projects, have been invited to İstanbul. These artists have been given the opportunity to live, work and produce works of art in İstanbul. Furthermore, they are offered the chance to attend or organize workshops and idea meetings and produce art together with creative individuals, scholars and young local artists.

As the first exhibition of the project, Salvadori’s workshop exhibition was held in September-October 2009 whereas Muntadas held a one-month workshop with young artists from mid-June to July 2009. The next workshops for the project will be held by Kogler, Lappas and Calle in February, April and May, respectively.

Recognizing the differences

“I was invited to work in İstanbul and do a project and a workshop with Turkish artists,” explains Muntadas in an interview with Today’s Zaman. “But I proposed that it be extended to other places like Cambridge, the United States and Venice. So we extended it to two other workshops and the result of the three workshops is more works of art.”

About the exhibition’s title, Muntadas says the idea of being “in between” serves as a means to depict the relationship between different cities and peoples. “In these workshops, the concept of ‘in between’ is shared,” says Muntadas. “In between can be between people and cities.” The distances between the cities and the peoples also refer to the differences that people are urged to have more awareness of. “The exhibition is highly varied and everybody needs to see the work and the differences,” says Muntadas. “We have people from Venice, from Cambridge and from İstanbul. I think it’s more distinctive this way.”

Muntadas is also working on another project he expects to finalize by October. “It has to do with the workshop. … I’m making a film for television about the views inside and outside İstanbul about issues like stereotypes,” he explains.

Entrance forbidden

One of the works in the exhibition is about the borders of the city. Pablo Martínez Muñiz, a young Spanish artist who came to study at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University seven years ago and decided to live in İstanbul, takes part in the exhibition with a book titled “Entrance Forbidden.”

“The concept of the workshop was İstanbul ‘In Between’,” says Muñiz. “I was interested in working on the idea of borders because I think the idea of borders is very important in the idea of being ‘in between.’ Borders and frontiers are places that don’t belong to anyone.”

“This project was [intended] to create a technology of the frontiers that I have found in İstanbul through research,” he adds. Muñiz explains how he integrated his research into his work, saying: “I created images and texts in [my] book to talk about basically the idea of frontiers or borders that destroy all human beings. Just think about the best-known walls, like the one in Palestine now, or the one that existed in Berlin. I’m talking about every kind of frontier, including walls or the gates of Kemer Country and the walls of military areas, the hospitals for rich people.” “Frontiers are not just physical; they are also [built] mentally, for economic, social or religious reasons,” he says.