I-You-They: A Century of Artist... | Exhibitions

I-You-They: A Century of Artist Women

惭别艧丑别谤

Beyoglu | Istanbul | Turkey

09 Oct, 2021 - 29 May, 2022

I-You-They: A Century of Artist Women features a selection of works by artist women who lived and worked in Turkey between roughly the 1850s and the 1950s. Realized under the patronage of 脟i臒dem Simavi and curated by Deniz Artun, the exhibition derives its name from one of 艦眉kran Aziz鈥檚 exhibited works. The exhibition not only recognizes each woman, most of whom could not realize themselves and therefore were overlooked and neglected by art history, but also searches for the grounds for making a collective 鈥渨e鈥�.

I-You-They points to 鈥渁nother鈥� time where all women and works that remained outside the straight lines drawn from a name, group or institution towards one another are remembered and told and presents these artist women with a 鈥渃entury鈥� of their own.

The exhibition spreads across three floors of the 惭别艧丑别谤 building with 232 works by 117 artists. The entrance floor 鈥淚鈥� is for unsung women who are only faced with their mundane existence in the mirror. Mirrors placed in different corners of the exhibition space are meant to catch a glimpse of more than one face or facet of a single woman. Remembering that there were moments when women deliberately erased or scratched their own names from history, these mirrors also work as a 鈥渕agnifying鈥� medium held up to those who failed to reflect the sparks of their creativity on history.

The first floor 鈥淵ou鈥� offers an encounter with the soft and unifying other and calls out for children as the primary 鈥測ou鈥漵. Most of the exhibited portraits and self-portraits are selected to contemplate the experience of motherhood and subjectivity, the definition of family and compassion, the power of creativity and immortality. 鈥淵ou鈥� also juxtaposes the sanctity of motherhood with the sensuality of nudity.