Pera Museum’s new exhibition “PƎRⱯ Reverse” brings together multiple perspectives on current art spaces and their urban neighborhoods in Istanbul, navigating between high and popular cultures. Drawing upon two paintings from the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation’s Orientalist Painting Collection, the exhibition explores global capitalist relations and localized cultural practices in art.
“PƎRⱯ Reverse” is organized in collaboration with Bauhaus-Universität Weimar’s “Practices and Politics of Representation” class, led by Professor Mona Mahall with Yelta Köm, and Hochschule für Künste Bremen’s “Temporary Spaces” class, led by Professor Aslı Serbest.
The exhibition examines the role of architecture in establishing and revealing how institutions mediate and operate in relation to their urban environments.
The exhibition, curated by Prof. Mona Mahall and Yelta Köm from Bauhaus-Universität Weimar and Prof. Aslı Serbest from the University of the Arts Bremen, explores the role of architecture in establishing and revealing how institutions mediate and operate within their urban environments at specific times and places.
“PƎRⱯ Reverse” draws inspiration from the famous 1906 painting The Tortoise Trainer and a 17th-century harem depiction from the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation’s Orientalist Painting Collection. It also incorporates elements from the Foundation’s collections of ceramics, weights, and measures, which reflect histories of global culture, economic exchange, and political contact not only with Europe but also within the Middle East and the Far East.
The exhibition is divided into three parts: “Globals,” “Steps,” and “Speculations.” It seeks alternative ways of existing in connection to the world and each other—not through the promise of a better modern world and its resulting fragments, but by constructing trials on evolving our own lives, aesthetic practices, and knowledge. The exhibition also examines the modern art world, shaped by unbalanced global capitalist relations and localized cultural practices.
“PƎRⱯ Reverse” positions itself as an institution created to explore the role of institutions in a world that is both increasingly connected and increasingly fractured. The exhibition brings together artists, architects, and researchers from Istanbul, Ankara, İzmir, Tehran, Hong Kong, Osaka, Berlin, Weimar, and other cities in Germany. Featured artists include Anıl Aydınoğlu, Arın Aydın, Aslı Serbest, Ayça Tuğran, Çisel Karacebe, Celal Orkun Gözübüyük, Dorian Beer, Elizaveta Boucke, Elif İmre Bilgin, Helen Christina Hümmer, Iben Schneider, Jolina Mix, Jisu Kim, Kitman Yeung, Leonie Link, Mona Mahall, Negar Rahname, Talia Dilara Ölker, Yelta Köm, and Yuhe Lin.
