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A profusion of colour: rich pickings from London’s Spring Islamic Sales

By Cornucopia Connoisseur | March 26, 2022


Spring has arrived early in London this year, and with it Pietro Longhi’s sumptuous Procession of the Venetian Bailo Francesco Gritti in Constantinople, painted in Venice in 1731. It is one of the highlights of this week’s Islamic Sales, Lot 76, in Sotheby’s Art of the Islamic World & India including...
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Posted in Fine Art, Islamic Art, Textiles

Paws for thought

A very special place, for people and dogs

By Monica Fritz | February 28, 2022


Even in the centre of this city of 18 million, respite can be found in patches of woodland. Tucked away in the upper grounds of Bosphorus University, behind Rumelihisarı, lies, BUpaws. BUpaws is a dog sanctuary for street dogs, a place for them to shelter and feel loved: some 70...
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The architect, the church and the city

By Monica Fritz | January 10, 2022


Stepping out of cacaphonic noise into restful silence is a very Istanbul experience. An easy, magical escape from the overwhelming crowds in the square below the Galata Tower is down a side street, at Galata Kulesi Sok 26. A heavy iron door opens to reveal the small churchyard of Saints...
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Going strong, thirty years on

Cornucopia's three decades of delight

By Monica Fritz | January 8, 2022


In celebration of Cornucopia's 30th anniversary I would like to pull out a selection of my favourite spreads. Celebrating 30 years of Cornucopia also means celebrating 30 years of collaboration with our creative director, Clive Crook. Here are some examples of his many memorable pages.  Above is the Yeşil Mosque with...
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Robert Chenciner (1945–2021)

Andrew Finkel pays tribute to the mesmerising Robert Chenciner, a maverick scholar and fond friend, who has died in London

By Andrew Finkel | November 8, 2021


In medias res, the curtain rising on the action in full flow, might seem an odd eulogy to recite over the memory of a dear friend, but Robert Chenciner was someone in perpetual motion and even now it is hard to think of him as being still. Think Christopher Lloyd’s...
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Posted in Obituaries

Ultimate cool: Mughal emerald-tinted specs and the real Roxelana

London Islamic Sales Week October 2021

By Cornucopia Connoisseur | October 25, 2021


This week is Islamic Sales Week in London, with wonderful curiosities being auctioned at Sotheby’s, Bonhams and Christie’s. Lots 213 and 214 in the Sotheby’s Arts of the Islamic World & India on October 27 were created for a truly enchanted world. It was an age when two Turkish-speaking dynasties, the Ottomans...
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Posted in Fine Art

A snapshot

Wind in their sales: Contemporary Istanbul is back

By Monica Fritz | October 11, 2021


We came back from the Contemporary Istanbul Art Fair yesterday feeling tired and pleased, having spent a week immersed in art, hearing stories and new proposals, making new friends and meeting many new subscribers, seeing old friends and lots of catching up. It was great to feel Istanbul alive again...
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The Golden Horn is alive with art

By Cornucopia Connoisseur | October 10, 2021


The last day of Contemporary Istanbul. Don't miss it. And do get there as soon as you read this, so that you can grab coffee and a bail of straw by the water, the Golden Horn's smartest ringside pew. You will find Cornucopia in the entrance hall, under the Ayşe...
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Devilish stuff

Quartet Muartet ten years on

By John Shakespeare Dyson | October 7, 2021


One warm evening in September, four of Turkey’s most talented jazzmen – people who had not played together for over ten years – had a musical reunion that I was privileged to attend (Above: Quartet Muartet 10 years on: from left, Sarp Maden, Genco Arı, Alp Ersönmez, Volkan Öktem). The...
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Posted in Music & Performing Arts, - Musical Shares

Murmuration, a concept

Mahallah Festival now on till Sept.26th

By Monica Fritz | September 17, 2021


This eclectic Arts Festival is in it's last days and is a must!  The Mahallah Festival is stunningly organised and curated by Sabine Küper-Büsch and Thomas Büsch of the Diyalog Derneği Istanbul and partly sponsored by the German Consulate of Istanbul and the Austrian Ministry of Culture. The phenomena Murmuration,...
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The cat’s whiskers

Bliss under the pines: the Istanbul Music Festival is back and our music critic indulged in his first live concert of the year

By John Shakespeare Dyson | August 27, 2021

On Wednesday August 25 I went to Emirgan for a concert on the ‘Fıstıklı Teras’ (Pine Tree Terrace) of the Sakıp Sabancı Museum. It was a balmy summer evening and outside the Atlı Köşk – the main building of the complex, approached via a wide marble stairway – there was...
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Posted in Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares

Little Amal - The Walk

Little Amal, a young refugee, embarks on a remarkable journey

By Claire McIntosh | August 8, 2021


Seeing a 3.5 meter tall puppet of a little girl, making her way down the street, or out of the window of a car on the way to work, would certainly turn heads. Thus is the goal of Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson. Created by the minds of the Good...
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Posted in Exhibitions, Fundraiser, Good causes, Highlights Turkey, Highlights Around The World

A fickle paradise

The abstract world of Etel Adnan, whose show at the Pera Museum ends this week

By Thomas Roueché | August 2, 2021


This week marks the last opportunity to catch Impossible Homecoming, a show of the work by the artist and writer Etel Adnan at the Pera Museum. Adnan’s work, shown here for the first time at a major institution in Istanbul, are abstract landscapes that confront memory through the powerful use...
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Two Istanbuls

A recent edition by Izzet Keribar

By Monica Fritz | July 27, 2021


The National Geographic and award winner photographer Izzet Karibar has released his latest tribute to Istanbul, poetically documenting the city as it was before these last decades of great change.  Iki Istanbul is a playful glance at an Istanbul that hardly exists  anymore. Karibar opens a door into his vast...
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America, America…

The Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic conducted by Garrett Keast

By John Shakespeare Dyson | July 23, 2021

This is festival week at Borusan, and a large number of concerts by the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra, plus three performances by the Borusan Quartet, have appeared on their website. To access the concerts you will need to sign in to borusansanat.tv. You are advised to make haste and listen...
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The magnificent four

An unmissable performance of Pēteris Vasks and Fazıl Say by the Borusan Quartet – watch it while you can

By John Shakespeare Dyson | July 5, 2021


On June 27, a concert by the Borusan Quartet that had been recorded on March 31 was put online. In the interests of speed, I will review this concert only briefly, as any delay in getting my piece to the readers of Cornucopia may result in disappointment: the recording may...
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Now you hear it, now you don’t

By John Shakespeare Dyson | June 28, 2021

A concert by players from the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra, recorded on April 8, was streamed online on June 13. Conducted by Cem Mansur, they played works with a retro flavour by Ligeti, Respighi and Stravinsky. I, in my naiveté, believed that it would be possible to access the concert...
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Posted in Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares

On the Shores of Gallipoli

‘From the mind of young Churchill a cunning new plan… ’ – two Scottish singers reflect on their home town’s darkest day

By Cornucopia | June 6, 2021


Much is written about the terrible Anzac losses at Gallipoli, where, as William Guerney wrote in Cornucopia 20, Australia and New Zealand ‘forged new national identies independent of the mother country'. For Turkey, the horror is beyond words…    But thousands of towns around the world were shattered by Churchill’s...
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Our strange present and near future

Emre Hüner and his Cratered Glazes at Arter

By Thomas Roueché | June 6, 2021


The artist Emre Hüner began working on his show at Arter [ELEKTROİZOLASYON]: Exo-Settlement Recorded on Cratered Glazes in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic, and when the museum itself was not yet completed. His practice began with small, exquisitely produced works on paper, but once confronted by the vast space Arter’s...
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Family matters

Jazz pianists Cenk Esen and his father, Aydın Esen, join forces

By John Shakespeare Dyson | May 27, 2021


On Friday July 5, 2019, as long-time readers of this blog may remember, I attended a concert at the UNIQ concert hall in which USA-based Turkish jazz pianist Aydın Esen performed with a singer whom he referred to as Randy K (she is in fact his wife), drummer Tommy Campbell,...
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