📍 Arter Museum Istanbul, just Google it near Taksim Square
💰 Adult 30 lira (rmb less than 12). Under 24 free, Thursdays free (perfect miss)
🕙 closed on Mondays, open from 11:00-19:00

Spent almost two weeks in Istanbul, reading Pamuk and citywalking. People here seem to be living between different levels, having fun between heavy reality and dreams. There is a wealth of cultural diversity, manual laborers working for hard money, direct and open sexual expression, and social workers who gather in downtown parks in the evening to distribute food to the poor. It wasn't until I got a glimpse of the modern art growing here in Arter that I got a glimpse of the depth behind the country's secularized life, the despair, detachment and struggle wrapped up in the historical, political and ethnic events that reminded me of China.

Large, carefully placed painted Windows serve as a way for the building to open to the street, connecting the gallery to the city. This connectivity provides a continuous link between Istanbul, the museum and art, while also meeting the functional needs of the gallery space, protecting the large internal gallery volume from natural light.

The three-storey entrance gallery runs through the centre of the museum, creating a visual and physical public passage. It connects Doraplade Street to the park at the back, allowing the building to effectively unfold on all sides and welcome everyone. This internal street coordinates the steep elevation changes throughout the site and is the main organizing element of the building.

The main building volume where the gallery is located is connected externally by subtle chamfering of the facade, increasing the plasticity of the typical blank facade of gallery architecture. The three dimensional concave and convex diamond panels create a dramatic, inviting envelope that reflects sunlight throughout the day. Rich variations of light and shadow breathe life into the building in an exciting and dynamic way, and also provide a fascinating modern interpretation of Istanbul's historic Mosaic facades.

The exhibition hall is very large, from the fourth floor all the way to the first floor, there are three theme exhibitions. Not many people, when I went there was less than ten people on the first floor, very comfortable. Each theme exhibition has a booklet in English/local language, which describes each exhibit. It was quiet inside, with little more than the sound of installation art, and I wandered around for nearly two hours and stayed in the bookstore for a while. Yeah, and the bookstore on the ground floor is great. Lots of art books. The price of the small restaurant is not expensive, some people in that self-study office, the best time to visit the exhibition on cloudy days!



I often go to Turkey for personal reasons. I also find the country's contemporary art scene surprisingly special and high quality (the donors are strong, the practitioners almost all have a European training background and a broad perspective). Globally, one of the more widely known is data visualizer Refik Andor, who has just finished a solo show at the Serpentine Gallery in London and has commissioned work for M+ in previous years.

Among the local galleries in Istanbul, I like Arter best, a 6-story contemporary gallery with an amazing collection and a very special curatorial perspective. This large group exhibition is very interesting, and all the works are from the collection of Arter's patron/founder, Turkish tycoon Omer Koc, who is also Artnews's top200 collector in the world. (Btw, just a tidbit, Turkey's economy is basically controlled by four big families, and Koc is one of them. Think of him as the Li Ka-shing of Turkey!

His collection covers almost every field of classical, design, modern, contemporary, weird artifacts, and daily necessities. This exhibition of his collection is equally inclusive and whimsical.

To be honest, not all of the works are "good works" in our traditional sense, although there are great masters such as Richard Hamilton, Kiefer, Bruce Nauman in the exhibition, as well as manuscripts by Klimt, There's also Italian artist Marco Tirelli, whom I worked with on my exhibition "Night Is the Shadow of the Earth" in Beijing last year, but Kiefer's painting sits next to a bunch of medieval geometry and a bizarre arm lamp. Hidden near the Klimt manuscript is a large, strange ghost sculpture...

Nevertheless, this is still the best exhibition I have seen in recent years, playing the "strange taste" unexpectedly, the clever integration of good works, non-art and strange works, the exhibition is rich and full of ingenuity, and every step in the exhibition, every corner surprised me.

If you are going to Istanbul before December 29 this year, I highly recommend it!