A Museum in motion at Arter

Welcome back to AL-MONITOR Istanbul.

“April is the cruellest month,” wrote T. S. Eliot, “breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing / Memory and desire, stirring / Dull roots with spring rain.”

It is cruel, this year, in the way it sharpens perception. In a recent essay, Hannah Lucinda Smith traces how Istanbul, once so legible in its chaos, has grown heavier, its rhythms dulled by a slow accumulation of strain.  A must-read for the fans of this insightful and articulate author and journalist.

And yet, Istanbul insists on its layers. In Dolapdere, daring art museum Arter turns inward with “Work in Progress,” revisiting its own making in a neighborhood that once raised eyebrows. Its cafe invites you to linger between books and thoughts. Across the city, artists conjure monsters, silence and data into new forms, while on Buyukada, a vast orphanage stands suspended between memory and decay.

If you want to receive this newsletter or our other new weekly City Pulse newsletters — for Doha, Dubai and Riyadh — sign up here.

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.

Also, don’t forget to follow us on Instagram: @citypulsealm

1. Leading the week: 'Work in Progress'

Gozde Ilkin’s “Bosphorus Tour,” embroidery and paint on fabric (Firat Ruzgar/ Arter)

There was a time when placing a contemporary art institution in Dolapdere, long written off as rough-edged, neglected and stubbornly outside Istanbul’s cultural comfort zone, felt almost mischievous. When Arter unveiled its new home in 2019 and moved there from its home on Istiklal, reactions hovered between intrigue and skepticism. The building was immaculate; the surroundings were not.

Now, with “Work in Progress,” Arter turns that contrast into content. Curated by Emre Baykal, the exhibition gathers works drawn from more than 300 pieces produced or supported by the institution over the past 15 years, pairing them with new commissions that continue that lineage. The result is a portrait of an institution through the works it has midwifed, collected and lived with.

The show unfolds across the building, slipping from gallery spaces into corridors and public areas. On the entrance level, works orbit around how we leave marks on the world. One floor below, the mood shifts inward: Architecture, spatial memory and the choreography between inside and outside take center stage, echoing the building’s own layered existence.

Some works feel almost site-bound. Ayse Erkmen’s “Blue Stone,” composed of rock excavated during the construction of Arter itself, anchors the exhibition with a gesture that is both literal and poetic, with the building remembering its own making. Elsewhere, Serkan Taycan’s scaffold-like structures, Gozde Ilkin’s embroidered landscapes (main picture) and Asli Cavusoglu’s archaeological fragments flirt with the idea of construction as an ongoing, imperfect act.

Asli Cavusoglu’s “The Stones Talk," 2013, comprising copies of archaeological artefacts and various materials, original drawings on tracing paper. (Murat Germen/Arter)

Importantly, this is only the first chapter. In October, many of the works will be replaced, new ones introduced and the exhibition reconfigured in a curatorial decision that resists closure and insists on continuity.

If Arter once raised eyebrows for where it chose to stand, “Work in Progress” suggests that the more interesting question is how it has chosen to grow: not as a fixed monument, but as a shifting, porous ecosystem.

Date: Until October, then second phase. 

Location: Arter, Irmak Caddesi No: 13, Dolapdere, Beyoglu

2. Word on the street: Bistro by Divan at Arter

A terrace with a view. (Arter)

Bistro by Divan, set on the first floor of Arter just beside its excellent artshop — easily among Istanbul’s top three, alongside Robinson Crusoe at Salt Beyoglu — is reason enough to linger. The real draw is the generous terrace, a rare open-air perch in Dolapdere where the city feels briefly negotiable. The menu keeps things simple and well-judged — good coffee, light plates, no fuss.

Location: Arter, Irmak Caddesi No: 13, Dolapdere, Beyoglu

3. Istanbul diary

“Others and my family,” by Hilal Polat at Hara. (Hara)

• “Promises of Monsters” curated by Ezgi Hamzacebi at Hara, brings together 10 artists exploring bodies that resist fixed identities through sculpture, installation, photography and video. Moving across thresholds between the natural and the artificial, the visible and the suppressed, the exhibition reframes the “monster” as a site of potential rather than of deviation. Until July 26.

• Yonca Saracoglu’s “Untold Tales,” now at Istanbul Concept Gallery in Beyoglu, pairs new oil paintings with selected sculptures to build a quiet, layered narrative around memory, absence and what resists language. Marked by a restrained palette and mist-like compositions, the exhibition unfolds as a contemplative “blue period” in which silence carries as much weight as form. Until April 11.

• “Human and Machine,” on view at Barin Han, brings together digital and physical works by women artists examining data, invisible labor and the shifting boundaries between identity and technology. Curated by Merve Guven Ozkerim and Basak Burcu Apaydin, the exhibition turns the viewer into part of the system it questions, where presence itself becomes data. Until April 12.