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A mistress of unease

Esra Özdoğan's The Ghost in the Machine at Galeri Nev

By Alexandra de Cramer | January 8, 2025


Esra Özdoğan's solo exhibition, The Ghost in the Machine, curated by Çağla Özbek, invites viewers into a world where the boundaries between life, death and illusion are constantly shifting. The title, drawn from the British philosopher Gilbert Ryle’s concept of the 'ghost' inhabiting the 'machine' of the body, offers a framework...
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Sine İçli’s Jittering Maps

By Alexandra de Cramer | January 8, 2025


‘making paste from rain/you may ask - how?/to dream long enough/for fermentation’ These lines, part of a poem by the multidisciplinary artist Sine İçli, are positioned in the lower-left corner of the opening wall – an ode to clay and its transformative process. This poem introduces İçli’s first solo exhibition...
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An archive for your thoughts

Beyoğlu bids farewell to another fine art gallery

By Alexandra de Cramer | January 7, 2025


Archive signifies the closing of a chapter for Versus Art Project as they bid farewell to their iconic white cube gallery in Istanbul—a space distinguished by its apartment-like layout, soaring ceilings and exposed moldings. For 12 years, the gallery has occupied Hanif Han, an exceptional example of Istanbul’s Art Nouveau...
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Children’s Rain Call with the Colours of the Rainbow

By Alexandra de Cramer | January 1, 2025


The Istanbul-born Armenian conceptual artist Sarkis’s fifth solo exhibition, Children’s Rain Call with the Colours of the Rainbow, offers a playful exploration of collective healing. Inspired by workshops he led with children at the Venice and Mardin Biennales, the exhibition invites viewers to engage with the universal experience of rain,...
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As the trees were turning in Cats Park…

Gábor Csalog at the Beşiktaş Naval Museum

By John Shakespeare Dyson | December 30, 2024


On October 21 I walked down the hill from the Kedili Park (Cats Park), by the Harbiye Military Museum to Maçka, and on down Süleyman Seba Caddesi to Beşiktaş, where I met up with my companion for a concert by the Hungarian pianist Gábor Csalog at the Beşiktaş Naval Museum....
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Nemrut with Don McCullin

Our trip in photos

By Text and photographs by Monica Fritz | December 29, 2024


Don McCullin and his wife, Catherine Fairweather, take in the dramtic view at dawn as our new travelling companion and local Hüseyin Bey nonchalantly strolls, feeling very much at home on the fire altar and in the mountains.  Nemrut, how to visit: Nemrut can be reached from both the Adiyaman and Malatya...
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Posted in Photography, Travel, - Monica at large

Ayda Demirci: Two

By Alexandra de Cramer | December 29, 2024


Two marks Ayda Demirci second solo exhibition at the Ambidexter Gallery (until December 28, 2024), presenting a series of abstract oil on linen and canvas works created in 2024. The title reflects the “binary bond between the paintings, sometimes formed by shared dimensions, simultaneous creation, or by similarity and contrast,”...
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Posted in Highlights Turkey

The Clash of the Titans

Battle of the big bands

By John Shakespeare Dyson | December 21, 2024


On November 01 I went to the Cemal Reşit Rey Concert Hall in Harbiye to witness an unusual event – a jazz concert involving two orchestras playing simultaneously on the same stage. Although the event was advertised as a ‘clash’, it was in reality a friendly cooperation, an experiment whose...
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Posted in Music & Performing Arts, - Jazz, - Musical Shares

Where to go for jazz in Turkey

By John Shakespeare Dyson | December 1, 2024


ISTANBUL Nardis The longest-running jazz club in Turkey is Nardis, close to the Galata Tower. Opened in 2002 by guitarist and jazz mentor Önder Focan and his wife Zuhal, who runs Jazz Dergisi (‘Jazz Magazine’), it hosts over 300 Turkish and foreign musicians every year. Concerts – of which there...
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Pure perfection

By John Shakespeare Dyson | November 25, 2024


On October 16 I made my way to the Süreyya Opera House in Kadıköy to hear the violinist Bahar Büyükgönenç and the pianist Tutu Aydınoğlu play works by Zoltán Kodály, Johannes Brahms, Manuel de Falla, Robert Schumann and Fikret Amirov. For the first time I had the privilege of sitting...
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He who kisses the joy as it flies…

Jazz pianists Aydın and Cenk Esen mesmerise at the opening of the new Rahşan Düren exhibition, ‘Verwegenheit’

By John Shakespeare Dyson | November 10, 2024


On October 15 I made my way to Beyoğlu for the opening of an exhibition of paintings by the artist Rahşan Düren entitled Verwegenheit, which I believe means ‘audacity’ or ‘boldness’ in German. I had been told that Aydın Esen, described as the best jazz pianist in the world by...
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Posted in Exhibitions, Music & Performing Arts, - Jazz

Tragedy with a twist

Zenia Duell admires a magnificent Uzbek recasting of Handel's Tamerlano

By Zenia Duell | November 9, 2024


The curtain rose to reveal an enormous sculpture of a horse’s head, equalling the height of the theatre and encased in a cube of LED-lit scaffolding. This was the opening night of Handel’s Tamerlano, presented by the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation, directed by Stefano Poda and performed at...
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Posted in Music & Performing Arts, - Opera

The Eternal Echo of Blue

By Alexandra de Cramer | October 22, 2024


Opening night. The triptych in the background is titled Repair/Lapis Lazuli by Ahmet Doğu İpek. Galerist kicked off the 2024-2025 art season with the exhibition Distilled From Scattered Blue, curated by Károly Aliotti, who brings a wealth of experience from his roles at Meşher and Arkas. The show features the diverse work of...
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The adventure of The Adventure: The Case of the Missing Sherlock Holmes Mystery

Join us at the Chiswick Book Festival in London on Saturday

By Andrew Finkel | September 13, 2024


I am looking forward to participating in the Chiswick Book Festival this Saturday afternoon to talk about my novel The Adventure of the Second Wife, a tale that revolves around the last great Ottoman Sultan, AbdulhamidII’s fascination with Sherlock Holmes. I will be speaking to Prof. Maureen Freely, a distinguished...
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Posted in Highlights Around The World

Istanbul in the literary imagination

By Andrew Finkel | September 11, 2024


A friend once confessed the frustration of setting a story in Istanbul, a city where not even the past stands still. The place you think you should start is never the place you actually start – and umpteen drafts later you find yourself starting from somewhere different again.  And so it...
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Hidden talents

Why isn't Cem Mansur's astonishing Turkish Youth Orchestra touring the globe

By John Shakespeare Dyson | August 26, 2024

On July 24 I went to the Atatürk Cultural Centre to see the Turkish Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, the brainchild of conductor Cem Mansur, perform in a programme of works by Hector Berlioz, Sergei Rachmaninov, the young Turkish composer Ege Gür and Sergei Prokofiev. (I thank Mr Mansur for kindly providing...
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Posted in Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares

Excellence in the cello department

Gounod’s Faust, Sheherazade’s Istanbul connections and the brilliant Edgar Moreau

By John Shakespeare Dyson | August 17, 2024


On Sunday June 9 I went to the Atatürk Cultural Centre in Taksim Square to attend the last orchestral concert of the 52nd İKSV Istanbul Music Festival. This event featured the Tekfen Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Aziz Shokhakimov, and the French cellist Edgar Moreau (photograph by Salih Üstündağ) in a...
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Descending angels and croaking frogs

Early Glass, Mozart's tribute to Haydn, Reich's Jacob's Ladder: Borusan Quartet and Synergy Vocals in the Süreyya Opera House

By John Shakespeare Dyson | August 3, 2024

On June 8 I took a train on the Marmaray line to Söğütlüçeşme, the station in the valley behind Kadıköy through which the Kurbağalıdere Stream passes on its way to join the Sea of Marmara. Söğütlüçeşme actually means ‘Fountain with Willow Trees’, and Kurbağalıdere means ‘Stream with Frogs’, but I...
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Enter the new year with a bath

Cinili Hamam in Zeyrek

By Alexandra de Cramer photography by Monica Fritz | August 1, 2024


Nestled in the Zeyrek district of Fatih, this serene and pristine oasis stands in stark contrast to the surrounding bustle of Istanbul’s butchers, who come here to buy their meat. The cold room.   As is often the case with cultural heritage sites that have spanned nearly 500 years, some tiles...
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The Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, with István Várdai and Gülsin Onay

By John Shakespeare Dyson | July 29, 2024


This concert, one of the last in the 2024 İKSV Istanbul Music Festival, was also one of those organised within the framework of the ‘Hungarian-Turkish Year of Culture’. Hungarian musicians featured prominently in this year’s events: violinist Kristóf Baráti (a recipient of the Kossuth Prize, his country’s highest cultural award)...
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Posted in Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
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