The Turkish Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale will host Nilbar Güreş’s exhibition titledA Kiss On The Eyes, curated by Başak Doğa Temür. Bringing together new works produced specifically for the biennial alongside selected pieces from earlier periods of the artist’s practice, the exhibition will be on view from 9 May to 22 November.
Coordinated by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV), the Turkish Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale will present Güreş’s exhibition A Kiss On The Eyes. Curated by Başak Doğa Temür, the show brings together newly produced works created for the Venice Biennale alongside selected works from the artist’s earlier periods.
The 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia will take place under the theme “In Minor Keys”, curated by Koyo Kouoh, and will run from 9 May to 22 November.
A Gesture Spanning the Entire Exhibition Space
Nilbar Güreş’s exhibition I Kiss Your Eyes brings together works from across the artist’s multidisciplinary practice. Known for addressing cultural symbols, social inequalities, and questions of identity through a poetic, critical, and often humorous language, Güreş works across photography, video, collage, and textile. In recent years, her practice has increasingly expanded toward three-dimensional forms.
At the Turkish Pavilion in Venice, the exhibition will present large-scale sculptures and installations. Produced through an intensive and collaborative process carried out in Istanbul, these works were developed between December 2025 and March 2026 in collaboration with sculptors, metalworkers, tailors, and craftspeople. Treating material not merely as a formal element but also as a carrier of memory and labor, these new works will be shown alongside selected pieces from the artist’s earlier practice.
In her text for the Venice Biennale exhibition catalogue, curator Başak Doğa Temür describes the exhibition as follows:
“Rather than constructing a linear narrative, A Kiss On The Eyes establishes spatial relationships. Some works approach the floor, some lean against surfaces, others hang from the ceiling or balance through their own weight. Instead of directing visitors along a fixed route, the exhibition proposes slowing down and paying attention to the relationships the body forms with the space, the works, and with others. Moving through the exhibition becomes a continuous search for balance between distance and proximity, fragility and resistance. This approach forms the basis of Nilbar Güreş’s multidisciplinary practice. Drawing on lived experiences, the artist reflects on gender, migration, and belonging. Displacement, racism, xenophobia, and discrimination based on religion or belief appear in her works not as distant issues but as conditions shaping everyday life. Güreş often focuses on moments when social norms and power relations become visible through bodies, relationships, and the gaze.”
Textiles, clothing, domestic objects, and forms from nature occupy a central place in the artist’s work. These materials carry both personal and collective memories and are transformed through gestures of care, humor, and resistance. Proximity and political tension coexist, allowing fragility to become visible without being equated with passivity.
Exhibition Book
The exhibition A Kiss On The Eyes will be accompanied by a publication. In addition to essays examining the artist’s practice and the exhibition, the book will also feature a selection of poetry. The publication explores the notions of care and attentiveness, which lie at the core of the exhibition’s conceptual framework.
The texts offer layered readings of Güreş’s imagery while situating the exhibition within the broader continuity of her artistic practice. The poetry selection addresses themes that also appear in the artist’s work—such as gender, migration, and belonging—while focusing on concepts including displacement, memory, fragility, discrimination, plurality, and relationality.
Published by IKSV with the support of the Vehbi Koç Foundation and in collaboration with the Italian publisher Mousse, the bilingual Turkish–English book will be released at the opening of the biennale. The publication will be available at La Biennale bookshops, as well as at art-focused bookstores across Europe and worldwide. Online sales will be available via moussemagazine.it/shop.
The graphic design of both the exhibition and the book is by İpek Erdöl, while Hazal Yonca Birincioğlu serves as editor.
The Turkish Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale
The Turkish Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, taking place from 9 May to 22 November, is organized under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Türkiye and with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Türkiye, with Trendyol Art as co-sponsor. The exhibition is produced with the support of SAHA Association, while Turkish Airlines serves as the official airline partner. The Vehbi Koç Foundation provides publishing support for the exhibition book.
The advisory board responsible for selecting the artist representing the Turkish Pavilion consists of Dr. Ceren Özpınar, Chus Martínez, Öykü Özsoy Sağnak, and Ulya Soley.
Nilbar Güreş
Nilbar Güreş (b. 1977, Istanbul) completed her undergraduate studies in painting at the Marmara University Faculty of Fine Arts and received her master’s degree in painting and graphic design from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She later studied art and textile pedagogy at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
In 2023, Güreş was awarded the Outstanding Artist Award by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts and Culture and received a research grant from the same institution. Her previous recognitions include the Hilde Goldschmidt Prize (2013), the Otto Mauer Prize (2014), the BC21 Art Award at Belvedere Contemporary (2015), the De’Longhi Art Projects Artist Award at the London Art Fair (2018), and the Maud Mottier Prize (2021). In 2012 she participated in the International Studio & Curatorial Program in New York as a visiting artist with the support of the Austrian Ministry for Arts and Culture.
Working across photography, video, film, painting, performance, sculpture, installation, and mixed-media textile collage, Güreş approaches larger social issues through personal narratives. Her work often investigates social injustice, gender roles, and cultural codes of identity, documenting and transforming them through poetic interventions and humorous symbolism.
Nilbar Güreş currently lives and works between Naples, Vienna, and Istanbul.
