The art season opens with an intense program stretching from the 18th Istanbul Biennial to major museum exhibitions, from fresh works by the younger generation to ambitious retrospectives — offering audiences a rich calendar shaped by themes of memory, nature, identity, social reckoning, and transformation.
As the 18th Istanbul Biennial spreads across the city under the title Three-Legged Cat, galleries and museums are joining this wave with a striking range of shows. From emerging voices to established masters, from personal narratives to collective stories, Istanbul’s cultural calendar is overflowing this season.
Suzanne Lacy / SSM
Together
September 12 – December 14
Suzanne Lacy’s Together brings together the artist’s video installations and collective productions for the first time in Turkey. Since the 1970s, Lacy has made women’s social experiences visible, establishing herself as a pioneer of feminist art and a founder of socially engaged “new public art.” The exhibition powerfully highlights contemporary art’s social impact through works centered on identity, freedom, violence, and solidarity.
Erhan Coral / Galeri 77
Somewhere in the Middle of Nothing
September 4 – October 11
Erhan Coral’s Somewhere in the Middle of Nothing, presented alongside the 18th Istanbul Biennial and 212 Photography Istanbul Festival, takes viewers on a photographic journey through Mongolia’s desolate landscapes. Favoring silence and visual poetry over spectacle, Coral explores the concept of “nothingness,” offering a striking perspective on contemporary loneliness.
Canan Tolon / Dirimart Pera
Refrain
September 6 – September 28
Canan Tolon’s Refrain explores themes of nature, time, and memory through layered abstract paintings, reflecting the tension between construction and destruction. Twelve large-scale works create an immersive refrain-like effect, inviting viewers to trace cycles of time and suppressed silence. Blending architectural thought with an intuitive, abstract language, Tolon questions humanity’s desire to dominate nature and its disorientation within self-made systems.
Sarkis / Dirimart Dolapdere
Five Icons with Edirnekâri Frames
September 3 – October 12
Sarkis’s Five Icons with Edirnekâri Frames reanimates 18th- and 19th-century Edirnekâri frames and mirrors, embodying layers of memory, time, and space. Using fingerprint interventions on these historical surfaces, Sarkis refreshes traces of the past with contemporary materials, transforming cultural and aesthetic memory into a present-day experience. Each icon, named in homage to Edirne’s multicultural heritage, transcends objecthood to stand as a witness to time.
Nilbar Güreş / Arter
Velvet Gaze
From September 11
Nilbar Güreş’s Velvet Gaze at Arter presents a comprehensive selection spanning the artist’s early works to her latest creations. Curated by Emre Baykal, the exhibition combines painting, photography, sculpture, and video, intertwining human, animal, plant, and mythological elements. Güreş’s poetic yet critical storytelling flows across mediums, confronting viewers with a fluid, pluralistic world.
Edward Burtynsky / Borusan Contemporary
Evolving Earth
September 20 – August 16
Borusan Contemporary opens the season with Evolving Earth, the first major solo exhibition in Turkey by Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, who documents the impact of industrial activity on nature. The show spans Burtynsky’s thematic investigations of erosion, mining, quarries, and water resources, presenting humanity’s imprint on Earth through an aesthetic lens. Spread across every floor of Perili Köşk, this extensive selection calls viewers to a shared planetary responsibility.
Elif Uras / Galerist
Soil in Her Hands
September 16 – November 8
Elif Uras brings together ceramics, painting, and drawing in Soil in Her Hands, a show centered on women’s labor. Featuring pieces shaped by hand and wheel in New York alongside works cast in İznik, Uras merges traditional techniques with contemporary forms, giving visibility and timeless resonance to often overlooked female labor.
Hakan Gürsoytrak / EVİN
In a Word
October 4 – November 15
Hakan Gürsoytrak’s In a Word brings together his latest works questioning institutional structures and hierarchies through the Koram Principle. Drawing on absurd images from everyday life, Gürsoytrak reflects the contradictions of modern existence with irony and critique. The works combine academic techniques with popular aesthetics, offering a multilayered narrative.
Cevdet Erek / Galeri Nev Istanbul
Us and Them
September 12 – November 7
Us and Them at Galeri Nev Istanbul continues Cevdet Erek’s Guest Tribune series, begun in 2023, following its Liverpool Biennial debut. Combining stadium architecture with the format of a painting frame, Erek reimagines the stands as a meditation on collective belonging, borders, and division. Earth block sound installations and reinterpreted frame-stadium structures transform football’s visual codes into political and spatial inquiry.
Lucia Tallová / Zilberman
Unstable Monuments
September 20 – November 19
Unstable Monuments, Lucia Tallová’s first solo exhibition in Istanbul, offers a poetic exploration of memory, material, and time. Moving across painting, collage, installation, and photography, Tallová assembles objects like antique books, old photographs, and fragments of furniture, weaving past and present into a layered field of remembrance. In this space where memory settles like sediment on surfaces, the overlooked and forgotten regain their value.
Suzanne Lacy / SSM
Together
September 12 – December 14
Suzanne Lacy’s Together brings together the artist’s video installations and collective productions for the first time in Turkey. Since the 1970s, Lacy has made women’s social experiences visible, establishing herself as a pioneer of feminist art and a founder of socially engaged “new public art.” The exhibition powerfully highlights contemporary art’s social impact through works centered on identity, freedom, violence, and solidarity.
Erhan Coral / Galeri 77
Somewhere in the Middle of Nothing
September 4 – October 11
Erhan Coral’s Somewhere in the Middle of Nothing, presented alongside the 18th Istanbul Biennial and 212 Photography Istanbul Festival, takes viewers on a photographic journey through Mongolia’s desolate landscapes. Favoring silence and visual poetry over spectacle, Coral explores the concept of “nothingness,” offering a striking perspective on contemporary loneliness.
Canan Tolon / Dirimart Pera
Refrain
September 6 – September 28
Canan Tolon’s Refrain explores themes of nature, time, and memory through layered abstract paintings, reflecting the tension between construction and destruction. Twelve large-scale works create an immersive refrain-like effect, inviting viewers to trace cycles of time and suppressed silence. Blending architectural thought with an intuitive, abstract language, Tolon questions humanity’s desire to dominate nature and its disorientation within self-made systems.
Sarkis / Dirimart Dolapdere
Five Icons with Edirnekâri Frames
September 3 – October 12
Sarkis’s Five Icons with Edirnekâri Frames reanimates 18th- and 19th-century Edirnekâri frames and mirrors, embodying layers of memory, time, and space. Using fingerprint interventions on these historical surfaces, Sarkis refreshes traces of the past with contemporary materials, transforming cultural and aesthetic memory into a present-day experience. Each icon, named in homage to Edirne’s multicultural heritage, transcends objecthood to stand as a witness to time.
Nilbar Güreş / Arter
Velvet Gaze
From September 11
Nilbar Güreş’s Velvet Gaze at Arter presents a comprehensive selection spanning the artist’s early works to her latest creations. Curated by Emre Baykal, the exhibition combines painting, photography, sculpture, and video, intertwining human, animal, plant, and mythological elements. Güreş’s poetic yet critical storytelling flows across mediums, confronting viewers with a fluid, pluralistic world.
Edward Burtynsky / Borusan Contemporary
Evolving Earth
September 20 – August 16
Borusan Contemporary opens the season with Evolving Earth, the first major solo exhibition in Turkey by Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, who documents the impact of industrial activity on nature. The show spans Burtynsky’s thematic investigations of erosion, mining, quarries, and water resources, presenting humanity’s imprint on Earth through an aesthetic lens. Spread across every floor of Perili Köşk, this extensive selection calls viewers to a shared planetary responsibility.
Elif Uras / Galerist
Soil in Her Hands
September 16 – November 8
Elif Uras brings together ceramics, painting, and drawing in Soil in Her Hands, a show centered on women’s labor. Featuring pieces shaped by hand and wheel in New York alongside works cast in İznik, Uras merges traditional techniques with contemporary forms, giving visibility and timeless resonance to often overlooked female labor.
Hakan Gürsoytrak / EVİN
In a Word
October 4 – November 15
Hakan Gürsoytrak’s In a Word brings together his latest works questioning institutional structures and hierarchies through the Koram Principle. Drawing on absurd images from everyday life, Gürsoytrak reflects the contradictions of modern existence with irony and critique. The works combine academic techniques with popular aesthetics, offering a multilayered narrative.
Cevdet Erek / Galeri Nev Istanbul
Us and Them
September 12 – November 7
Us and Them at Galeri Nev Istanbul continues Cevdet Erek’s Guest Tribune series, begun in 2023, following its Liverpool Biennial debut. Combining stadium architecture with the format of a painting frame, Erek reimagines the stands as a meditation on collective belonging, borders, and division. Earth block sound installations and reinterpreted frame-stadium structures transform football’s visual codes into political and spatial inquiry.
Lucia Tallová / Zilberman
Unstable Monuments
September 20 – November 19
Unstable Monuments, Lucia Tallová’s first solo exhibition in Istanbul, offers a poetic exploration of memory, material, and time. Moving across painting, collage, installation, and photography, Tallová assembles objects like antique books, old photographs, and fragments of furniture, weaving past and present into a layered field of remembrance. In this space where memory settles like sediment on surfaces, the overlooked and forgotten regain their value.
