April 2025 Exhibitions

ArtDog Istanbul editors have compiled a list of noteworthy exhibitions for April. Here is a list of the notable exhibitions you can visit this month:

Samih Rifat’s Intellectual Legacy at Pera Museum

Pera Museum, celebrating its 20th anniversary, presents an exhibition titled Samih Rifat: “Çok İş Var Yapacak”, opening a door to the artistic and intellectual world of Samih Rifat, a key figure in Turkish art, literature, and thought. The exhibition brings together for the first time Rifat’s photographs, notebooks, handwritten notes, poetry, translations, drawings, writings, films, and music productions. The exhibition’s curatorial consultation is by Serhan Ada, photography consultation by Esra Özdoğan and Ahmet Elhan, with the exhibition and catalog design by Bülent Erkmen.

Details:

• Dates: March 20 – August 17, 2025
• Venue: Pera Museum, Istanbul

Burhan Kum’s Tribute to Mehmet Güleryüz: “Yaranın Kabuğunu Kaldırmak Gibi…”

At Galeri Gülden Bostancı in Antalya, Burhan Kum’s personal exhibition “Yaranın Kabuğunu Kaldırmak Gibi…” is dedicated to the memory of the late Mehmet Güleryüz. The exhibition features Kum’s drawings, oil paintings, sculptures in metal, wood, and glass, and a video installation. Kum borrowed the title from a quote by Güleryüz in 2001 and presents it as a reflection of his thoughts on the role of the artist in challenging societal issues.

Details:

• Dates: March 21 – May 10, 2025
• Venue: Galeri Gülden Bostancı, Antalya

Rainbowland at Galeri Nev

Galeri Nev presents Rainbowland , an exhibition by Turkish-born artist Betty Danon. Danon’s works, which often combine typewriter writings with art, challenge and reestablish the relationship between writing and painting. This exhibition aims to revisit her rainbow series, which started in 1976, and celebrates its 50th year.

Details:

• Dates: April 9 – April 26, 2025
• Venue: Galeri Nev, Ankara

Koray Ariş’s The Skin We Live In at Arter

Arter presents Koray Ariş’s personal exhibition The Skin We Live In, showcasing sculptures from different periods of his career. The exhibition invites the viewer to explore the transformation of forms and the relationship between sculpture, objects, and the body through over 300 works.

Details:

• Dates: December 12, 2024 – August 3, 2025
• Venue: Arter, Istanbul

Bilecik Municipality Atatürk Park Art Gallery’s New Exhibition

Bilecik Municipality Atatürk Park Art Gallery brings together 8 young artists who live and produce in Eskişehir. The exhibition titled Surface Tension, curated by Hasan Hüseyin Özmen, features 18 works. The artists in the exhibition revisit the concept of breakage through their own stories, observations, and materials. While interpreting societal fractures, individual dissolutions, and the cracks in nature’s own cycles, each work reflects an inner search that reveals the inevitability and transformative power of fragility. The exhibition invites the viewers to not only explore the moments of fragmentation, division, and breakage addressed in the artists’ practices but also to discover their own cracks and scattered pieces. The exhibition, a product of the collaboration between Gallery Coordinator Oğuz Cabar and the Eskişehir-based artist collective Online Art Project (OAP), can be visited until the last day on April 15.

Details:

• Date: March 14 – April 15, 2025
• Venue: Atatürk Park Art Gallery, Bilecik
• Entry Information: Bilecik Municipality Atatürk Park Art Gallery

Hüsamettin Koçan’s Behind the Shadow at MERKUR

At MERKUR Gallery, renowned artist and academician Hüsamettin Koçan’s

Hüsamettin Koçan’s Behind the Shadow at MERKUR

At MERKUR Gallery, renowned artist and academician Hüsamettin Koçan’s Behind the Shadow exhibition features collaborations with Bayburt women using traditional techniques. This exhibition blends Koçan’s unique artistic language with the women’s craft, focusing on the bead weaving technique.

Hüsamettin Koçan, “Kadının Güneşi I”
Oil on canvas with crochet beads, kitsch materials, 60×60 cm, 2025Details:

• Dates: March 15 – April 19, 2025
• Venue: MERKUR, Istanbul

A Bed of One’s Room by Eda Çekil at BüroSarıgedik

Eda Çekil’s A Bed of One’s Room exhibition at BüroSarıgedik explores the personal and intimate through the concepts of gender, resistance, and comfort within the confines of a bed. The artist challenges traditional definitions of the private space of a bed and its many symbolic meanings.

Details:

• Dates: April 8 – April 29, 2025
• Venue: BüroSarıgedik, Istanbul

Tradition and Modernity at Arkas Art Center

Arkas Art Center presents an exhibition that illuminates the modernization process of Turkish painting from 1920 to 1970, featuring over 110 works from the Arkas Collection. The exhibition explores the balance between tradition and modernity as seen in the works of artists from the Ottoman period transitioning into the Republic.

Details:

• Dates: March 26 – December 28, 2025
• Venue: Arkas Art Center, Izmir

Umut Erbaş, Just when you thought the story was over at Art On

Umut Erbaş’s exhibition

Just when you thought the story was over

at Art On İstanbul focuses on the transformation of materials and how stories can be rewritten through endless possibilities. Erbaş’s installations and visual compositions challenge the viewer’s perception, creating a new narrative with every visit.

Details:

• Dates: March 22 – April 19, 2025
• Venue: Art On İstanbul

Aslı Torcu’s Touched by Image at Pi Artworks

Aslı Torcu’s exhibition Touched by Image at Pi Artworks Istanbul explores the ambiguity of images and the fragile nature of memory. The exhibition features layered works that reveal the changing relationship between time, memory, and image, creating a continuous process of transformation and renewal.

Details:

• Dates: March 15 – May 3, 2025
• Venue: Pi Artworks, Istanbul

Birds Buggin’ by Vincent Krüger at Ambidexter Gallery

At Ambidexter Gallery in Beyoğlu, German artist Vincent Krüger’s Birds Buggin’ exhibition invites viewers to engage with his figurative works, which blend various materials into spatial installations. Krüger’s work often plays with the perception of recognition and alienation, leading the viewer through intersecting narratives.

Details:

• Dates: April 10 – May 3, 2025
• Venue: Ambidexter Gallery, Istanbul

Under the Carpet at offgrid art project

Offgrid art project hosts Under the Carpet, curated by Nilay Yerebasmaz, bringing together works by Defne Parman and Esra Gezer. This exhibition invites reflection on the processes of remembrance and forgetting, focusing on the hidden traumas and shared memories embedded in society.

Details:

• Dates: April 8 – May 10, 2025
• Venue: offgrid art project, Beyoğlu

Other Side of the Universe by Merve Atılgan at x-ist

At x-ist, Merve Atılgan’s first solo exhibition Other Side of the Universe challenges the oppressive patriarchal system. The artist explores alternate existences where freedom and equality prevail, inviting viewers to reimagine their reality beyond the restrictions of traditional gender norms.

Details:

• Date: April 10 –
• Venue: x-ist, Gümüşsuyu / Beyoğlu
• Entry Information: x-ist

“Moon, Sun, and Moon” at Müze Gazhane

Hosted by İBB Culture and İBB Heritage, Müze Gazhane is hosting the solo exhibition “Moon, Sun, and Moon” by artist Cem Güventürk. Güventürk’s exhibition, which centers on the questions “What is art?” and “Who am I?”, presents a stance against scientific and mechanical approaches aimed at understanding humans. It addresses existential pains of human existence, elevating the ordinary, and embracing all contradictions of humanity. In this exhibition, featuring 25 works on canvas, 14 on paper, and five sculptures, the artist offers a new form of expression through his unique symbolism. The exhibition deeply explores humanity’s search for meaning, sharing this inquiry interactively with the viewers.

Details:

• Date: February 9 – April 13, 2025
• Venue: Müze Gazhane, Istanbul
• Entry Information: Müze Gazhane