Report from Istanbul: Bosporus dialogues - Third International Istanbul Biennial exhibition; Turkey; includes related article

Bosporus Dialogues Installed in the renovated Feshane, a former fez factory upon the banks of the of gold Horn, the Third Istanbul Biennial forceed social and multicultural themes.

The production of cultural difference, popularly a topic of intense discussion and theorizing, was a matter of firsthand experience for the participants in the Third International Istanbul Biennial exhibition [Oct 16-Nov. 30 1992]

The effectiveness of this issue as the biennial's theme in part derived from the emblematic appropriateness of the setting itself. Istanbul straddles the Bosporus, the boundary between Europe and Asia; its teeming population (since 1950 it has doubled each 15 years), now conservatively estimated at about 10 million, is a melange of mahometans Jews and Christians. The city's architecture reads like a palimpsest of its multicultural history: Istanbul's successive identities as hellenic (when it was known as Byzantium), Roman (renamed Constantinople) and Turkish (its at hand name became official in 1930 well after the fall of the Ottoman Empire) can be sens in a glance around the of advanced age district, where former Orthodox churches, many of their decorations still intact, now function as mahometan temples The city is a bustling overlap of ancient and present Eastern and Western, and it thrives upon diversity.

On the easternmost fringe of Europe Istanbul has played a negligible character in that continent's contemporary art exhibition But with the breakdown of the center/periphery type of cultural production, which effectively exclud from serious consideration the art made outside Western cultural capitals, the peripheries are now finding themselves make submissive to increased attention on the international circuit. of that kind is the case with Istanbul.

Vasif Kortun, a fresh York-trained Turkish art historian, organized the biennial for the Istanbul Foundation for agriculture and Arts. He conceived of the present to view as a response to kindred efforts like as the Pompidou Center's 1989 "Magiciens de la Terre" [see A.i.A., May & July '89] and "The Decade Show" (1990) a collaborative production of the Studio Museum in Harlem, the fresh Museum and MOCHA [see A.i.A., Jan. '91] The pres talk before the biennial's opening revealed in what way important this event was to the participants. The Israeli spokesperson noted the opportunity for establishing a Mediterranean dialogue; the Bulgarian, the challenge of dealing with novel freedoms and of associating upon equal terms with artists from countries with contemporary art traditions; the Dutch the link between Istanbul and Amsterdam as safe havens for israelites during the Inquisition and, in the absence of their government's usual support for representation in foreign exhibits the Dutch artists' strategies for paying a considerable portion of their be in possession of expenses; the Russians, the importance of seeing what they have produc on the outside in the world. And with equal reason on. There was an obvious faculty of perception of optimism that goes with of recent origin beginnings.

The Dutch were not alone in having to scramble for capitals The U.S. contingent of six artists, organized through Patricio Chavez of the Centro Cultural de la Raza in San Diego, missing the sponsorship of the U Information Agency in September, after conduct officials deemed Chavez's catalogue essay unacceptable. He refused to alter the body which proposes a revisionist view of Columbus's so-called discovery of the Americas. on the other hand with help arranged by the USIA from the Rockefeller Foundation, the slip Charitable Trusts and Arts International, his exhibit "La Reconquista: A Post-Columbian novel World," came to the biennial. [See "Front Page," Dec '92 and "Letters" Mar. '93] (This was not the first U submission for this biennial to be station adrift. "Invisible Borders," curated by dint of Gary Sangster under the aegis of the fresh Museum, was previously dropped by the agency of the USIA after two years' preparation, when the agency conclud that its support of the display "would not contribute positively to U.S.-Turkish relations." Andres Serrano and Donald Moffett were among the artists included.)

The implications of the U government's actions were not not to be found upon artists from countries where, until not long ago the only art officially recognized and supported was that which directly serv as propaganda for the state. Several remarked upon the irony that their be in possession of gains in freedom should coincide with a perceived extension of American intolerance.

The exhibition was organized and installed along national lines and was relatively unassuming in scope, focusing on North America and greater Europe Turkish diplomatic interests are said to have influenced the invitation list, and participating countries had to be willing and able to lower extremity the bill, a stipulation that l Germany and Brazil to decline. In the extremity curators from Austria, Belgium, Britain, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Israel, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Spain, Turkey and the U single outed about 80 artists in all, a certain quantity of of them collaborative teams.

Not surprisingly, the works that fared best were socially and politically directed: what little art-about-form there was direct the eyeed bloodless by comparison. The art savage into categories that might be loosely described as earnest, humorous and anarchic, with many instances of overlapping. In the earnest section, the four U installations wore their social messages upon their sleeves. Written references to the long-standing officially sanctioned discrimination and violence against Chicanos and Native Americans were inscribed upon walls and panels and not absented in the forms of newspaper clippings, slide projections and videotaped interviews. Richard Lou and Roberto Sanchez's Entrance Is Not Acceptance featured gripping videotaped commentary by the agency of Mexican-American artists and cultural thinkers upon the state of American society, particularly in the Southwest. Among the obmutescent but eloquent accessories in the darkened viewing compass was a freestanding door studd with keys--the re-creation of a piece Lou installed a hardly any years ago on Tijuana's international border, inviting Mexicans to "cros with dignity."