Thursday, July 7, 2011

Istanbul Art: Galeri Manâ



The inaugural exhibition, Nereden Nereye, a Turkish phrase that translates “From Where to Where,” includes sixteen works by eleven artists, and explores the function of images and the nature of representation. Nereden Nereye features paintings, drawings, photographs and video works by a number of internationally recognized artists such as Murat Akagundüz, John Baldessari, Lewis Baltz, Mel Bochner, Diana Al-Hadid, Tamar Halpern, Sol LeWitt, Albert Oehlen, Robin Rhode and Charles Sandison, many of wom are showing their work in Istanbul for the first time. The exhibition runs through July 23, 2011.

How we perceive images and their underlying meaning is explored by many artists in the show. John Baldessari, for example, incorporates found images such as film stills, which he alters to tease out multiple meanings contained in the image. In doing so, he exposes how images work in our culture and the assumptions that we make on a daily basis.

Galeri Manâ, located in the Tophane district of Istanbul, is a converted wheat mill that dates to the 19th century and features 400 square meters of exhibition space. The gallery takes its name from the Turkish word mana (concept or meaning in Turkish) and was founded by Mehves Ariburnu and Suzanne Egeran in 2011.