Between east and west - The Fourth International Istanbul Biennial, Antrepo, Hagia Irene and Yerebatan, Istanbul, Turkey

The Fourth International Istanbul Biennial was noteworthy for what it was not. It was not a showcase for celebrated international figures, nor did it feature an in-the-know roster of younger artists who have already received substantial acclaim. Instead the Istanbul Biennial was a a great deal of more free-form event--part intercultural meeting earth part innovative exhibition.

The work upon view proved enormously eclectic, with installations predominating on the contrary other genres well represented. above 100 established and emerging artists from 47 countries were invited, many of them by means of no means familiar to an international audience. Nineteen Turkish artists took part, including several artists in their twenties and thirties. Particular attention was paid to artists from neighboring areas--the Balkan countries, for instance, including Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and Serbia--but there were also participants from Iran, Israel, Egypt Morocco, Thailand, China and Japan.

Istanbul, a vibrant metropolis of 14 million inhabitants, is a historical center of Islam, Christianity and Judaism, and a city resonating with Third World and Eastern European influences. It was an apt location for similar a diverse exhibition, and Rene close a well-known German dealer, collector and curator who has drawn out been closely identified with the Fluxus motion proved an interesting choice as curator. It was Block's decision that the Biennial would dispense with national presentations of artists chosen to exhibit their respective countries; he considers this a 19th-century approach that is outdated today. stop spoke to me of his desire to have a real engagement with Istanbul, and his wish to avoid having the exhibition move round into a kind of international road display temporarily plunked down in an exotic locale. He have the appearanceed intensely aware, too, of his hold status as a German curator working in Turkey given the repeatedly uneasy circumstances of the roughly sum of two units million Turks who live and work in Germany.

In approaching the work of younger artists, arrest brought to bear his possess knowledge of art from the 1960 and '70 An exhibition of European Fluxus artists was high hilled in conjunction with the Biennial, and fill up included in the Biennial itself a number of older works--by Polke Broodthaers and Beuys, among others--some of which were chooseed from his own extensive holdings. This left him lay open to charges of promoting his be in possession of collection, but I would give an inkling of that more generous motives were involved. of the like kind works loosely mapped out connections between the artistic generations, while also providing a rare opportunity for a Turkish audience to diocese the kind of influential pieces that a Western European or American audience might take for granted.

The exhibition was more an independent than a state-sponsored event; it was coordinated through the Istanbul Foundation for agriculture and Arts, and most of its funding came from private sources. Because of Turkey's checkered human-rights record, especially regarding the political left and the substantial Kurdish minority, an obvious bear upon of Block and the Turkish organizers was that the Biennial not be used by dint of the national authorities as a legitimizing advertisement. When single also considers that since the last municipal elections the city management of Istanbul has been controll by means of an Islamic fundamentalist bloc with its possess agenda, the situation becomes smooth more complex. However, I discovered no overt attempts at censorship or manipulation. Ironically, the greatest in quantity striking example of governmental interference came from the United States regulation when the U.S. Information Agency made a last-minute decision to withhold funding that would have made possible the nearness of American artists. This decision was regrettable, as Block's choices (Janine Antoni, Maya Lin, Mike Kelley and Tony Oursler, among others) were choice and the participation of these artists would have added considerably to the exhibition.

The Biennial took place in three separate sites: Antrepo, a renovated two-story customs warehouse through the Bosphorus; the Hagia Irene, a Byzantine basilica dating from the 4th hundred now a museum; and the Yerebatan Cistern, a 6th-century subterraneous grotto. The latter two sites are in the heart of Istanbul's historic advanced in years city. The Yerebatan Cistern is near the Hagia Sophia, and the Hagia Irene is in the first courtyard of the Topkapi Palace.

The Antrepo warehouse, with spare white walls and individual exhibition spaces, was by means of far the most museumlike of the sites, and this was where the majority of the artists showed. on entering, one was confronted with a wall of pulsating video monitors, part of an installation through Nam June Paik dealing with Turkish soldiers who fought in the Korean War. In contrast to Paik's high-energy piece, Svetlana Kopystiansky's installation was austere notwithstanding sensuous. Tall wooden shelving units lining the walls of an lay open room were divided into ranks of square compartments, in which were displayed several hundr works whose loosely fanned pages faced outward. Built-in ladders connecting the units and a pair of gymnastic rings descending from the ceiling originateed in an unlikely conflation of sum of two units Russian obsessions: literature and gymnastics.