Wrinkles of the City
By Monica Fritz | January 20, 2021
2015 was the year the now-famous French artist JR came to put his mark on our city with his project ‘Wrinkles of the City’. At the time it was like a treasure hunt, scanning the backstreets of Balat and Tarlabaşı in search of his oversized black-and white portraits that stood...
Tagged
bosphorus,
istanbul
Canon Ian Sherwood introduces Mungo McCosh’s saints
By Monica Fritz | January 13, 2021
Step down the aisle of Galata’s lovely mid-19th-century Crimean Memorial Church, a little-known masterpiece by George Street, architect of the Law Courts in London, and look closely at the rood screen dividing the nave from the chancel, the domain of the clergy, and you will come across some beautiful, unusual,...
Tagged
bosphorus,
istanbul
We have lost a friend, a brilliant writer and a man with a passion for Turkey and its people. David Shankland pays tribute
By David Shankland and friends | December 27, 2020
David Barchard's funeral took place on Tuesday, January 12, at St Mary's, Nun Monkton, Yorkshire. Since none of David’s family, nor his friends (other than those living in Nun Monkton), could attend the funeral because of Covid restrictions, this deeply moving service was live streamed. This is the link for...
Posted in
Obituaries
Tagged
bosphorus,
istanbul
By Cornucopia | December 23, 2020
In lockdown, New Year never comes too late, and Valentine's Day is on the horizon. Serap Yurdaer, the famous Alaçatı ceramcist, has produced a beautiful limited-edition ceramic plate-bowl-and-spoon set for Cornucopia readers. The set hand-shaped and food-safe, fired in her charming farmhouse studio with a warming deep reddish slip. A...
Tagged
bosphorus,
istanbul
Commentary by Paolo Girardelli
By Monica Fritz | December 21, 2020
_620_414_85.jpg)
I start with a quote from Andrew Finkel's 'Private View' column, in Cornucopia's issue No 42, on the parting of a friend: ‘The city I first met, too, has long since disappeared as the population has doubled and doubled and doubled again. But, of course, Istanbul is a city where...
Tagged
bosphorus,
istanbul
By Monica Fritz | December 13, 2020
Everything about this year has been strange, to say the least, including this December weather. In January we usually see a bit of snow in Istanbul, and only three years ago there was a wonderful blizzard, shutting down the city, which in those days was an appreciated oddity. This year...
Posted in
Travel, - Monica at large
Tagged
bosphorus,
istanbul
By Cornucopia | December 2, 2020
Thanks to Lara Stoby for this link to this mini-portrait on Bodurm, directed by Cenk Baysan with music by Sarper Semiz. Old settlers puts on brave faces against a jangling world of Oriental muzak, gross development, dual-carriage highways and tourist tat. Or is that unfair? But one can understand why...
Tagged
bosphorus,
istanbul
By Monica Fritz, filmed by Luca Fritz | November 29, 2020
Cornucopia photographer-at-large, Monica Fritz turns the pages of the new book from Cornucopia Books, in which Caroline Eden pays tribute to the pioneering Turkish photographer Ergun Çağatay's hauntingly beautiful images of Central Asia and beyond. Click here to view on youtube.
Tagged
bosphorus,
istanbul
By Cornucopia | November 23, 2020
The new Cornucopia book launched this week
The Land of the Anka Bird, a heart-warming selection of photographs of Central Asia and beyond by the much lamented Ergun Çağatay was immediately spotted last week by its author, Caroline Eden, in her favrouite Istanbul shop, Envai in Bebek (which also sells...
Tagged
bosphorus,
istanbul
By John Shakespeare Dyson | October 29, 2020
The online streaming of the İKSV Jazz Festival concerts is due to finish on November 3. You have been warned! The tap is about to run dry, so now is the time to catch up on what you have been missing at online.iksv.org.https://online.iksv.org/caz Selecting a concert at random from the...
Posted in
Music & Performing Arts, - Jazz, - Musical Shares, Shopping
Tagged
bosphorus,
istanbul
London Islamic Sales Week 2020
By Cornucopia Connoisseur | October 26, 2020
It's Islamic Sales Week again! And as always there are lovely artefacts waiting to be discovered and snapped up. It is astonishing to see an institution of the LA Mayer Museum for Islamic Art in Jerusalem's standing open its doors, even a chink, to deaccession treasures. Covid no doubt means...
Posted in
Islamic Art
Tagged
bosphorus,
istanbul
The İKSV Jazz Festival adds its voice to the Virtual Chorus
By John Shakespeare Dyson | October 11, 2020
No sooner had the 2020 İKSV Istanbul Music Festival got under way in September than the İKSV Jazz Festival popped up – like a most welcome jack-in-the-box (or should that be jazz-in-the-box?) – on October 3. Organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) and sponsored by Garanti...
Tagged
bosphorus,
istanbul
The 2020 İKSV Music Festival defiantly opens
By John Shakespeare Dyson | October 8, 2020
‘Alice laughed: “There’s no use trying,” she said; “one can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”’ It...
Tagged
bosphorus,
istanbul
By John Shakespeare Dyson | September 22, 2020
Following my blog on Saturday, the much-anticipated concert on Büyükada – given by an assortment of young string-players from Turkey, the United Kingdom and Germany – duly took place at the San Pacifico Church that same evening, and was streamed online. The orchestra, conducted by Dr James Ross, played works...
Tagged
bosphorus,
istanbul
Canavar: portrait of an artist in pursuit of the unpleasant
By Paul Benjamin Osterlund with photographs by Monica Fritz | August 22, 2020
The home and studio of the Istanbul-based artist Canavar (Turkish for ‘monster’), whose work above graces the walls of Marmara University building, is tucked away on a backstreet in the heart of Kadıköy’s Hasanpaşa neighbourhood, one of the few areas in the district that has not been gentrified or was...
Tagged
bosphorus,
istanbul
Monica Fritz, Cornucopia’s photographer-at-large, shares images from her travels in the Troad and beyond last September
By Monica Fritz | August 1, 2020
249dpi_620_438_85.jpg)
WAITING FOR THE RIGHT LIGHT… Last September I had the honour of accompanying the famed photographer Sir Don McCullin (pictured at Assos, left) and the author/publisher Barnaby Rogerson (right) on what turned out to be a very fun road trip to the west of Turkey for Cornucopia's issue No 61....
Tagged
bosphorus,
istanbul
A tribute to one of Turkey’s best-loved novelists
By David Barchard | July 16, 2020
Adalet Ağaoğlu, who died on Tuesday, July 14, at the age of 90, was one of the country’s most accomplished novelists in the last quarter of the 20th century, and very widely read in her own country, though undeservedly ignored elsewhere. Two of her novels, however, were translated into English...
Posted in
Literature, Obituaries
Tagged
bosphorus,
istanbul
Our favourite city escape has just reopened. Andrew Finkel is heading straight for his Bosphorus-side Adirondack chair
By Andrew Finkel | July 14, 2020
The very words ‘hospitality industry’ have always struck me as not just an oxymoron but slightly sinister. In my mind’s eye I see dark satanic mills fuming suntan oil or holiday camp animators with surgically enhanced smiles. But of course it is exactly that US$ 35 billion tourism industry in...
Tagged
bosphorus,
istanbul
In the first of a series of online exhibition highlights, we remember Nazimî Yaver Yenal (Istanbul Research Institute)
By Rose Shepherd | July 5, 2020
Nazimî Yaver Yenal: Imaginary World of a Paper Architect Istanbul Research Institute The story of Nazimî Yaver Yenal's career as an architect, spanning nearly 50 years, might be seen as one of stellar failure. Born in 1904, he trained at the Imperial School of Fine Arts, where his precocious talents...
Tagged
bosphorus,
istanbul
John Shakespeare Dyson completes his series of articles on the French ‘chanson’
By John Shakespeare Dyson | June 27, 2020
With this, the sixth and final instalment in our series of articles on composers of chansons – French art songs – we conclude our exploration of the songs of Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924). In this particular blog we will be examining the songs he wrote later in his life – from...
Posted in
Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
Tagged
bosphorus,
istanbul
