June 2025 Exhibitions

June has reinvigorated the art scene as well. In the first month of summer, museums and galleries are offering an array of striking exhibitions, making it increasingly difficult to choose among them. The editors of ArtDog Istanbul have compiled a selection of the standout shows for the start of summer 2025.

In the June selection by ArtDog Istanbul editors, exhibitions that accompany the fresh beginning of summer invite viewers on both visual and intellectual journeys. At Galeri 77, the joint exhibition by Bayram Demir and İlker Kayalı, A Day’s Story, A Lifetime’s Truth, touches on individual truths through scenes distilled from everyday life. Dirimart hosts powerful solo exhibitions at both its Dolapdere and Pera locations: Jorinde Voigt’s 365 Seasons brings together the artist’s recent oil paintings and stainless steel sculptures, while Mustafa Hulusi’s Breathing In the World offers a sensory perspective on nature. The Pera Museum, celebrating its 20th anniversary, shines a light on unique examples of Kütahya tile and ceramic art with its special exhibition Extraordinary Minas.

Also in June, Ali Kazma’s Landscapes of the Mind at Istanbul Modern speaks to those seeking intellectual depth; at Galeri Nev Istanbul, Nermin Er’s solo show takes viewers on a compelling journey through the edges of memory and imagination; and at Gülden Bostancı, Pelda Aytaş presents powerful narratives centered on body, identity, and belonging.

Two Young Artists, One Narrative at Galeri 77

Galeri 77 is hosting A Day’s Story, A Lifetime’s Truth, a joint exhibition by Bayram Demir and İlker Kayalı. The show presents deeply meaningful works shaped at the intersection of personal memory and collective mythology. Demir’s symbol-laden universe and Kayalı’s introspective, quiet monologues transform painting into a space of narrative. Viewers are invited to discover their own stories within the artworks and to step into the silent yet profound worlds the paintings evoke.

Exhibition Details

• Dates: May 22 – June 28, 2025
• Venue: Galeri 77, Karaköy
• Admission: Galeri 77

Works by Mustafa Hulusi and Jorinde Voigt at Dirimart

This June, Dirimart is hosting two new exhibitions across its Dolapdere and Pera venues. At Dirimart Dolapdere, Jorinde Voigt’s solo exhibition 365 Seasons marks a new chapter in the artist’s practice, presenting her latest oil paintings to the public for the first time. The exhibition also features large-scale works and stainless steel sculptures, offering a comprehensive view of Voigt’s evolving visual language.

Meanwhile, Dirimart Pera is showcasing Mustafa Hulusi’s solo exhibition Breathing In the World. The show brings together the artist’s photorealistic paintings of fruits and flowers and deepens his sensorial relationship with nature through a sound installation, creating an immersive experience for the viewer.

Exhibition Details

• Dates: Dirimart Pera: May 23 – June 22, 2025 / May 30 – June 29, 2025
• Venue: Dirimart
• Admission: Dirimart

The Story of Minas Avramidis at Pera Museum

As Pera Museum celebrates its 20th anniversary, it presents a special collection exhibition focused on the art of Kütahya tiles and ceramics. Titled Extraordinary Minas: A Story of Inspiration and Innovation in Kütahya Tiles and Ceramics, the exhibition centers on the original works of master artisan Minas Avramidis, whose figurative narratives helped revive the art of tile-making. Going beyond a purely technical perspective, the show offers a holistic view of ceramics that embraces emotional and cultural dimensions as well.

Featuring 54 works selected from the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation Collection—most of which are being exhibited for the first time—the exhibition reflects Avramidis’s distinctive artistic language and the stylistic characteristics of his era.

Exhibition Details

• Dates: From May 28, 2025
• Venue: Pera Museum, Istanbul
• Admission: Pera Museum

Ali Kazma Exhibition at Istanbul Modern

Ali Kazma’s solo exhibition Landscapes of the Mind opens on June 13 at Istanbul Modern. Among the artist’s works filmed across various geographies, the highlight is Sumi (2025)—a video documenting a 400-year-old traditional ink-making process in Nara, Japan, being shown for the first time.

Curated by Öykü Özsoy Sağnak and Demet Yıldız Dinçer, the exhibition also includes several works premiering in Turkey. These include The Ink House (2022) and Sentimental (2022), which explore author Orhan Pamuk’s personal archive and living space, as well as Alberto in Lisbon (2024), which follows the relocation of Alberto Manguel’s library from France to Portugal.

Exhibition Details

• Date: From June 13, 2025
• Venue: Istanbul Modern
• Admission: Istanbul Modern

A Critical Look at Family, the Body, and Gender Roles: “Naaile”

Pelda Aytaş’s debut solo exhibition Naaile has opened at Gülden Bostancı, a contemporary art gallery in Antalya. The exhibition offers a feminist inquiry into the female body, the family structure, and traditional gender roles. Drawing its name from both the Turkish female name Naile—meaning “a woman who has fulfilled her desire”—and an ironic transformation of the word maaile (meaning “with the whole family”), the show constructs an alternative narrative that centers women’s desires, vulnerabilities, and bodies.

By deconstructing the sacred family myth imposed by language and culture, Aytaş creates a political space of expression that challenges heteronormative structures and questions deeply rooted cultural norms.

Exhibition Details

• Dates: May 30 – July 12, 2025
• Venue: Gülden Bostancı, Antalya
• Admission: Gülden Bostancı

CANAN’s “Our Soul in Butterfly Flight” Exhibition in Mardin

Arura Mardin’s fourth exhibition, Our Soul in Butterfly Flight, brings together CANAN’s interdisciplinary artistic practice with the city’s rich cultural memory. Through her fictional character Maran, CANAN reimagines the multilayered landscape of Mardin—woven with mythological symbols, folk tales, and elements of daily life. Alongside figures such as Şahmaran and the double-headed serpent, the exhibition explores themes like the healing power of laughter and the seductive nature of fear.

The titular work of the exhibition offers a poetic entry point, symbolizing the lightness of butterflies and the soul’s free flight. Our Soul in Butterfly Flight invites visitors into a dreamlike universe where fantasy and reality intertwine.

Exhibition Details

• Dates: May 15 – October 31, 2025
• Venue: Arura Mardin
• Admission: Arura Mardin

A New Exhibition by Nermin Er at Galeri Nev İstanbul

Galeri Nev İstanbul presents Closer to Me Than Myself, Stranger Than Myself – There Is Someone Wandering Within Me, a solo exhibition by Nermin Er. Borrowing its title from the lyrics of the song Longing in My Eyes, Pain in My Heart, the exhibition explores the occasional estrangement one feels from oneself, the delicate connections between everyday life and the unconscious, and the infinite possibilities that can coexist in the same spaces and moments. It also highlights the transformation and change that occur within repetition.

Using stop-motion video works and handcrafted models, Er creates a silent yet evocative atmosphere that oscillates between the familiar and the strange, at the borders of memory and imagination. Visitors are invited into a multisensory experience—guided by moving objects and rhythmic sounds—that encourages a deeper awareness beyond the act of seeing.

Exhibition Details

• Dates: May 16 – June 30, 2025
• Venue: Galeri Nev İstanbul
• Admission: Galeri Nev İstanbul

Two Group Exhibitions at Anna Laudel This Summer

Anna Laudel İstanbul welcomes the summer of 2025 with two group exhibitions: Where the Sidewalk Ends and Where You Are Understood. On view throughout the summer at the gallery’s Gümüşsuyu space, the exhibitions bring together works by 12 artists who explore diverse techniques and conceptual approaches.

Both exhibitions invite viewers to confront the rhythm of the city as well as the evolving nature of individual existence. While Where the Sidewalk Ends reflects on the liminal spaces between the urban and the personal, Where You Are Understood delves into the complexities of human connection and self-expression.

Exhibition Details

• Dates: June 1 – August 31, 2025
• Venue: Anna Laudel İstanbul
• Admission: Anna Laudel

Alix Marie’s Works in Ankara and İzmir

With the invitation of Ka and the support of the Institut français de Turquie, French artist Alix Marie’s first comprehensive exhibition in Turkey, Ana / Ada, is presented simultaneously in Ankara and İzmir. The exhibition, held concurrently in two venues, brings together themes of mythology, the body, and ritual with the cultural memory of Anatolia. The Ana section at Ka explores the protective and symbolic meanings of salt and clay through structures built with a bust of Şahmeran, ceramic body parts, and salt blocks. In the Ada section at Çatı, the artist offers a large-scale installation featuring photographs embroidered on red velvet, inspired by İzmir’s weaving heritage. Both exhibitions establish a visual and conceptual dialogue through symmetric structures and repetition derived from kilim motifs, inviting the viewer to reflect on the body, history, and ritual.

Exhibition Details

• Dates: ANA at Ka Visual Culture and Artistic Thought Space, May 29 – June 28, 2025 / ADA at Çatı Open Art Space, İzmir, May 6 – June 28, 2025
• Venues: Ka Visual Culture and Artistic Thought Space, Ankara / Çatı Open Art Space, İzmir
• Admission: Ka / Çatı Open Art Space

Larry Muñoz Exhibition at Zilberman

Larry Muñoz’s exhibition at Zilberman, Graceful Elegant Beasts, weaves a timeless and placeless narrative through the memories carried by objects. Comprising video, photography, and installations, Muñoz’s works reassemble materials that have lost their original function into new meanings. Through layers of grace, aesthetics, and monstrosity, he creates a tension between individual and social judgments. The exhibition invites viewers to question their relationship with objects and to reflect on the potential inherent in materials.

Exhibition Details

• Dates: May 22 – July 26, 2025
• Venue: Zilberman, Beyoğlu, Mısır Apartment
• Admission: Zilberman

“Possibility and Probability” at Depo


Ateş Alpar’s solo exhibition Possibility and Probability at Depo addresses themes such as domination, surveillance, and dispossession through the lens of personal experiences. The exhibition interrogates the contemporary traces of colonialism by exploring relationships established through space, objects, and the body. Focusing on the politicization of everyday items, the works build a bridge between collective memory and erased histories. Alpar aims to go beyond representation to reveal alternative fields of resistance.

Exhibition Details

• Dates: May 13 – July 5, 2025
• Venue: Depo
• Admission: Depo

“Garden of the Silent” by Halil Petük

Halil Petük invites viewers on a sensory journey along the edges of memory and time in his first solo exhibitionGarden of the Silent at KAIROS. In the exhibition, Petük explores the relationship between image, memory, and loss through translucent surfaces and misty landscapes. The artist translates photographic elements such as blur, light, and framing onto canvas using acrylic and oil paints, creating an original visual language that emphasizes remembering over clarity.

Exhibition Details

• Dates: May 23 – June 14, 2025
• Venue: KAIROS, Beyoğlu
• Admission: KAIROS

“Art Nouveau” Exhibition at the Hungarian Cultural Center

Dorka Demeter’s photographic exhibition Architectural Splendor: Hungarian Art Nouveau is on view at the Hungarian Cultural Center. The exhibition documents the traces of Art Nouveau architecture across Europe, revealing the boundless aesthetic legacy of this style. Through years of archival research and travel photography, Demeter brings together architectural examples spread across the vast territories of the Hungarian kingdom. Driven by both personal passion and a commitment to cultural heritage, the artist transforms into a visual storyteller of Hungarian Art Nouveau.

Exhibition Details

• Dates: June 13 – August 31, 2025
• Venue: Hungarian Cultural Center Istanbul
• Admission: Hungarian Cultural Center

Vuslat’s Emanet at the Troy Museum

Curated by Paolo Colombo, Vuslat’s exhibition Emanet/Troya is on display at the Troy Museum in Çanakkale. Drawing inspiration from Homer’s legacy in the Iliad, the exhibition invites visitors to reflect on myth and memory. While exploring how contemporary wars and chaos shape our collective memory, the show also looks back 5,000 years, shedding light on the region’s cultural heritage through works that question the fear of death, the struggle of the self, and the concept of love.

Exhibition Details

• Dates: May 25 – July 25, 2025
• Venue: Troy Museum, Çanakkale
• Admission: Troy Museum

Guido Casaretto’s Creation Process at YUNT

Visitors are invited to witness the creation process of a double horse sculpture, produced using molds placed on site by the Turkish-Italian artist Guido Casaretto, in the exhibition Başıboşlar, Gergedanlar ve Yanlış Anlamalar Hakkında (About Strays, Rhinos, and Misunderstandings), which runs throughout the summer of 2025 at YUNT. In the show, the artist traces the unusual dialogue in which an Ottoman sultan requested a unicorn from the Doge of Venice, bringing a replica of 19th-century bronze casting molds originally brought from Italy to Turkey into the exhibition space. Using discarded materials collected from the surroundings of YUNT, Casaretto creates a social space of togetherness through a participatory casting process open to visitors.

Exhibition Details

• Dates: May 10 – August 15, 2025
• Venue: YUNT, Sultanbeyli
• Admission: YUNT

New Exhibition at Kasa Gallery: Those Within Us, Those in Our Hands

The exhibition Those Within Us, Those in Our Hands is held at Kasa Gallery as part of the “ART312 Exhibition Project and Practice” course, curated by Derya Yücel at Istanbul Bilgi University’s Art and Cultural Management Program. Centered on the theme of “human,” the show explores the individual’s relationship with life, memory, history, and society through the lenses of loss, melancholy, action, and resistance. Featuring ten artists from different generations, the exhibition reflects on personal and social quests for freedom inspired by Jean-Paul Sartre’s concept of “bad faith.” Contemporary invisible mechanisms of oppression such as surveillance, repression, and control are made visible through the artists’ works across various media. The exhibition aims not only to provoke thought but also to open space for feeling, sharing, and collective action.

Exhibition Details

• Dates: May 30 – June 20, 2025
• Venue: Kasa Gallery, Karaköy
• Admission: Kasa Gallery

“Summer Edition” Returns for Its 4th Edition at EArt

The traditional summer exhibition Summer Edition returns with its 4th edition at EArt Gallery, featuring interdisciplinary works by A. Elif Aydoğmuş, Bahadır Yıldız, Defne Parman, Ebru Zarakolu, Ezgi Bahadır, Gizem Ünlü, Hazer Çoşgun Kırkpınar, Maze Sürer, Pınar Yılmaz, and Songül Girgin. The exhibition transforms the gaps between space and form into a conceptual experience, highlighting the tension between absence and presence of space in artistic creation. The works approach negative space as an integral part of three-dimensional structures, offering viewers both spatial and abstract opportunities for exploration. With this selection, the gallery invites reconsideration of the relationships between negative space and form, as well as the multilayered dialogue within contemporary three-dimensional practices.

Exhibition Details

• Dates: June 17 – August 31, 2025
• Venue: EArt Gallery, Kağıthane
• Admission: EArt Gallery

“Akbank Contemporary Artists Award” Exhibition Marks Its 43rd Year

The “Akbank Contemporary Artists Award” exhibition is meeting art enthusiasts for the 43rd time this year, organized in collaboration with Akbank Sanat and the Association of Painting and Sculpture Museums. Curated by Ceren Erdem, the exhibition centers on the theme of “friendship,” exploring relationships with nature and non-human entities through an artistic lens. Featuring works by 27 young artists selected by a jury from various disciplines, the exhibition invites visitors to consider friendship as a political and ecological field of action. It aims to enhance the visibility of emerging artists and foster new connections with the audience.

Exhibition Details

• Dates: May 30 – July 31, 2025
• Venue: Akbank Sanat, İstiklal Avenue
• Admission: Akbank Sanat

“Spiral Dance” at MERKUR

Dilara Akay’s exhibition titled Spiral Dance is opening its doors to art lovers at MERKUR. The show reflects the artist’s awareness of her origins through mitochondrial DNA following the loss of her mother. In her sculptures and paper works, the spiral form symbolizes the infinite cycle of existence moving inward and outward. Akay makes visible the trace of life energy passed from mother to child through her art.

Exhibition Details

• Dates: May 28 – June 28, 2025
• Venue: MERKUR, Piyalepaşa
• Admission: MERKUR

New Exhibition at Bilecik Atatürk Park Art Gallery

The exhibition titled Zamanla (With Time) by ceramic artist Dr. Emre Can, Lecturer at Bilecik Şeyh Edebali University, brings to light the fatigue and fragility of individuals struggling to keep pace with the fast rhythm of modern life through ceramic forms. Emphasizing that time is not only a measure but also a shaping and transforming force, the exhibition expresses inner collapses and disruptions of rhythm through its objects. The bending, melting, and layering ceramic surfaces stand out as metaphors for bodies and minds worn down by time. Zamanla invites viewers to contemplate not just the feeling of time, but the objects that change with time.

Exhibition Details

• Date: Wednesday, May 21 – June 10, 2025
• Venue: Atatürk Park Art Gallery, Bilecik
• Admission: Atatürk Park Art Gallery

“From the Blue Table” at Galeri Selvin

The exhibition From the Blue Table opened at Galeri Selvin in Arnavutköy. It features works created around the table by notable artists such as Ali İsmail Türemen, Berna Türemen, Cihat Burak, Ergin İnan, İlhan Berk, and Mustafa Pilevneli. The exhibition draws inspiration from the warm and sharing summer gatherings at Ali İsmail Türemen and Berna Türemen’s summer house in Turunç, where they met with artist friends. Each piece offers a narrative that carries the friendships and shared memories of the past into the present.

Exhibition Details

• Date: May 15 – June 15, 2025
• Venue: Galeri Selvin, Arnavutköy
• Admission: Galeri Selvin