Burhan Uygur’s Istanbul life in bold strokes

Welcome to Al-Monitor Istanbul.

November calls for nostalgia, flickering memories and a soft focus. So this week’s issue looks at Burhan Uygur, the painter who broke every rule in 20th-century Istanbul, and at the velvet-lit Orient Bar at Pera Palas. We linger in the golden age of cinema with “The Art of James Cameron,” an exhibition at an old movie house recast as the city’s cinema museum, and dive into his “Alien” and “Titanic” worlds. Finally, instead of a book, we suggest the Ottoman History Podcast, where historians take a nuanced look at the empire. 

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Thanks for reading,

Nazlan (@NazlanEr on X)

P.S. Have tips on Istanbul’s culture scene? Send them my way at nertan@al-monitor.com.

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1. Leading the week:  Istanbul’s rule-breaker

Burhan Uygur’s tender sketches of Istanbul and daily life (Courtesy of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Kultur)

Few painters saw Istanbul as Burhan Uygur did, with a mix of tenderness and defiance. Born in 1940 in the Black Sea town of Tirebolu, Uygur studied under poet-artist Bedri Rahmi Eyuboglu at the Fine Arts Academy but soon rebelled against its methods. 

“He didn’t like rules,” recalled his wife Vesile Uygur, “but he was disciplined in his defiance.” That defiance shaped one of the most original voices in Turkish art of the second half of the 20th century.

The exhibition “Solo Botter: Burhan Uygur,” curated by Levent Calikoglu with Irem Busra Coskun, brings together more than 80 works — paintings, sketches and mixed media — along with the artist’s notebooks, a short film and his provocative quotes. “I loathe and detest anything labeled as art — including paintings — that reek of insincerity, emotional exploitation, dramatic colors, exaggerated figures or flashy brush strokes lacking authenticity,” he said. 

The works reveal two distinct periods: his early academic years of controlled figuration in the 1960s, and the looser, emotionally charged works, some of which in daring splashes of red that he produced from the mid-1970s onward. In those later years, Uygur painted anywhere life happened: on ferries, in cafés, in parks, capturing the pulse of the city on whatever surface he could find — his sketchbook, a piece of wood or an old wooden chest.

“Unnamed,”  mixed technique on a wooden chest, from Uygur’s family collection (Photo Nazlan Ertan)

“My technique is limited — even though I have an academic background,” Uygur says in his quotes scribed on the dark blue walls of the exhibition, “But I do not let that bother me. To me, art is something that reaches into my heart. I see the love, beauty and the brokenness in myself.”

The setting amplifies the mood. Casa Botter, the Art Nouveau landmark on Istiklal Street, was designed in 1900 by Italian architect Raimondo D’Aronco, who served Sultan Abdulhamit II. Known for the Sheikh Zafir Tomb in Yildiz and the Agriculture and Industry Pavilion, D’Aronco also brought a rebellious elegance to the Ottoman capital.

📍Where: Sahkulu Mah. Istiklal Cad. No: 235 Beyoglu

🗓️ When: Until Nov. 23

2. Word on the street: The Orient Bar at Pera Palas

The Orient Bar (Courtesy of Pera Palace)

So let us continue with another Istanbul great: the Orient Bar at Pera Palace. Opened in 1892 for passengers of the Orient Express, it has served everyone from Agatha Christie to Hemingway, who once called it “a good place to be bad.” Today, after a recent renovation, it still glows under red lamps and brass mirrors, the air heavy with piano notes and the faint arrogance of another century.

The drinks menu nods to Istanbul’s layered past: the Sirkeci Spritz (gin, mandarin liqueur, cardamom bitters) and the Levant Negroni (raki in place of gin) are local legends in the making. 

📍Where: Mesrutiyet Cad. No: 52 Tepebasi, Istanbul

3. Istanbul diary

Ali Emre Kaymak’s “Fish” (Courtesy of Gulhane Sanat)

In the hushed vault of Gulhane Sanat’s restored cistern, Ali Emre Kaymak’s “The Cistern” turns fish, water and memory into a dialogue with the city’s layered past. Until January.

The Istanbul Cinema Museum dives into “The Art of James Cameron,” a visual chronicle of the Oscar-winning director’s imagination. More than 300 original works, from teenage sketches inspired by pulp comics and early sci-fi, to hand-drawn storyboards, film posters, mechanical designs, props, costumes and concept paintings, reveal how Cameron’s pencil dreams evolved into cinematic worlds. Curated by Kim Butts with exhibition design by Helga Faletti, the show charts six decades of creation, from Piranha to Titanic, from one of Hollywood’s boldest myth-makers. Through March 31.

Lively Karakoy hosts a solo by young Turkish artist Olgu Ulkenciler, a painter of geometric and human paradoxes, whose Dickensian “It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times” at Galeri Bosfor explores light and darkness in the time of angst. Until Nov. 29.