“Private Museums in Turkey and Their Role in Democratization Process”
Ahmet Emre ATEŞ∗
Abstract
This paper aims at examining the influence of private museums on democratization in Turkey. It can be argued
that the cultural institutions like “Istanbul Modern”, “Santral Istanbul” and “Pera Museum” have an
indispensable role for democratic consolidation in Turkey since the beginnings of 21st century. Therefore, these
private museums have gained public interest more than pro-democratic and non-governmental organizations in
Turkey. By doing so, they are configurating the public opinion within the political and cultural framework.
Keywords: Democratization, Private Museums, Culture, Public Art
Introduction
Two months ago in Istanbul, a new museum opened his doors to the public: The
Museum of Innocence. Among other private museums which have emerged since 2000 in
Turkey, the Museum of Innocence has a particular space. It is based on the novel of Orhan
Pamuk, first Turkish Nobel Laureate author. Published on 2008, the novel named “Museum
of Innocence”, describes history of an obsessive love in 1975, between a wealthy businessman
and a lower class shop girl without regard to the interests of the girl. At the end, the man
becomes a collector of the personal objects of his love.
Orhan Pamuk’s own museum, The Museum of Innocence, is a collection of those
objects. He established the museum, while displaying a collection of everyday life in Istanbul
during the period in which the novel is set. The reason of mentioning such museum is that the
concept of private museums in Turkey initiates the public attention towards the diverse
aspects of art and culture. By doing so, the transmission of ideas such as modernity,
democracy, feminism, popular culture etc. spread out more than before. Therefore, it can be
argued that especially the increasing number of private museums gives an impetus to social
and political changes.
Throughout the analysis, the interaction between private museums and democratic
consciousness will be discussed within the impacts of museums’ exhibitions and their
masterpieces. So far as the private museums are concerned, their masterpieces on modern and
contemporary art are interesting in order to regard the importance of such cultural institutions
over Turkish democratization.
Private museums like “Istanbul Modern”, “Santral Istanbul”, “Sakıp Sabancı
Museum” and “Pera Museum” construct a socio-political framework for public opinion
∗
Research Assistant, University of Istanbul, Department of Political Science and International Relations
(Figure 1 and Figure 2). Thus the exhibition of modern and contemporary art converges with
the issues of democratic policies. Pluralism, ethnic diversity, ecology, gender, millenarian
movements, mass mobility, voting, civil society are the most exposed pro-democratic themes
in these private museums.
In this research, I will distinguish two main chapters. On the one hand, the first chapter
will focus on the evolution of modern art in Turkey and its relationship with the political
framework. On the other hand, the second chapter will focus on the relations and a possible
impact of Turkish private museums and their contemporary exhibitions-masterpieces over the
democratization process from 2000s up to nowadays.
By doing so, the interaction between Turkish contemporary art and democratization
process will be examined. In other words, although it is still questionable to determine the
influence of contemporary arts and museums, it can be argued that contemporary art serves as
a medium for mass mobility during democratization process. It tries to create an esprit du
monde which is compatible with political development of the countries since 2000s.
I. The Evolution of Turkish Modern Art
Before analyzing the interaction between private museums and democratization
process in Turkey, the history of Turkish modern art should be summarized in order to show
how closely linked the framework between politics and art. For this reason, four periods of
artistic evolution have to be categorized in this chapter. In my point of view, the evolution of
modern art in Turkey is articulated by four different tendencies that shaped the political
framework as well.
The first period of such categorization can be entitled as the process of
“westernization” both for politics and art during which the late century of Ottoman Empire is
concerned that is the 19th century. The second period can be categorized as the process of
“secularization” which is based on the principles of Turkish nation-state building between
First and Second World War. The third period is regarded as the period of “individualization”
in which the independent sensitivity of the artists becomes important since the transition of
Turkish multiparty system. The fourth period is that of contemporary “democratization”
which is still influent together with the emergence of private museums during 2000s.
Within Turkish art, the first example of political influences on modern artistic works
dates back the Ottoman reforms of 19th century. The Ottoman reforms of that time are mainly
about institutional reforms and based on modernization. However, the idea of modernization
was referred to as a sense of westernization. This is why, most of intellectuals were sent to
Europe, in order to acquire what is the “modern” so that they bring it back and apply at home
for the state reforms. Among these intellectuals, there were politicians, journalists, writers and
painters. Most of them were educated within the ranks of military and civil bureaucracy.
This first period is mainly about state reforms. Therefore, the artistic evolution is
mainly state-oriented. By arguing the westernization aspect of the first period, we should refer
to the movement of orientalism. For example, the first exhibition is inaugurated in 1873 by
Şeker Ahmet Paşa whose paintings consist of landscapes and still-life in terms of orientalist
approaches. Ten years later, in 1883, the first school of fine arts (Sanayi-i Nefise Mektebi) was
founded and based on fine arts education in Europe, concerning both curriculum and methods
(Çalıkoğlu 2010, 18). Most strikingly, the school is headed by Osman Hamdi Bey, the
director of Imperial Ottoman Museums (Figure 3).
The nomination of Osman Hamdi Bey as school director is important for two reasons.
The first reason is that he was a well-known orientalist painter of the period. He was disciple
of French orientalist painters like Jean-Louis Gérome, Gustave Boulanger in Ecole des BeauxArts in Paris (Erden 2012, 10). The main idea of his paintings is about eastern and Islamic
ways of life. The second reason is that he came from the Museum of Archaeology, so that he
would combine both the concepts of museum and fine arts school.
Concerning the first evolution of Turkish modern art, it can be argued that it is
dependent on political reforms of late Ottoman period. The political reforms of modernization
render the modern art more westernized. While being both state and elite-oriented, this first
period underlines the necessity of ottoman dynasty for continuing political reforms. This is
why, even an ottoman caliph started to paint the westernized aspect of Ottoman palaces.
(Figure 4)
The second period is characterized by political and social secularization. Compared to
the first period, the role of women is strong and that of religion is decreasing in this period of
secularization. The fine art of secularization period is still state-oriented. Yet with a
difference: This new period is a part of nation-state building process in Turkey. Therefore, the
new republican regime tries to reshape the artistic development. The main target is the
secularization, the fine arts of Turkish Republic focuses on art-state-society relationship.
The republican one-party regime encouraged on the one hand, private banks and
government agencies to develop institutional collections. On the other hand, it organized so
called Homeland Tours for the artists, to discover and observe the Anatolian territories of the
nation-state. In contrast to the first period of Turkish Modern art during Ottoman reforms, the
Turkish republican reform aims at the public approval for the nation-state modernity. For this
reason, the second period of Turkish modern art deals with the secular and modernized
policies of the nation-state. This is why, the painting art was considered as “Pictures of the
Revolution”
“Pictures of the revolution” are mostly exhibited in the Museum of Painting and
Sculpture which was founded in 1937 by the directive of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder
of Turkish Republic. This period of one-party state concentrates the modern art, as a part of a
revolution from above. Civil and military bureaucracy encouraged a sort of vanguard
modernity throughout the education and the art. Indeed, both museums and schools have
respected the Bauhaus models through which the technology and the modern art have
combined the political goals of the republican secularization.
During the period of secularization, the so-called “Pictures of the revolution” have
been grouped in four different frameworks. Firstly the war of Independence ended up with the
proclamation of the Turkish Republic; secondly the features of the republican reforms; thirdly
the cult of the revolution leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk; and fourthly the image of secular
women have been illustrated in the painting arts and museums. Obviously, the secular image
of the republic is dominant in the Fine Arts’ perception of 1930s.
On the one hand, eminent painters like Hikmet Onat has descriptions on War of
Independence, on the other hand another painter Zeki Faik İzer becomes famous with his own
compositions on the secular side of republican reforms (Findley 2010: 272). By the same
taken, Feyhaman Duran is known as an official painter of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s portraits
while İbrahim Çallı’s works focuses on nude studies in order to demonstrate the secularization
attempts of Turkish Republic. Briefly, the first twenty years of Turkish Republic until the end
of Second World War have been managed through secularization of society through onedominant-party system (Duben 2007:110). Therefore, this situation renders the concept of
modern art as a part of secularization process. (Figure 5)
The third period concerning the evolution of modern art in Turkey is based on the
individualization. The individualization means the independent sensitivity of artists.
Compared to the period of westernization in Ottoman era and the period of secularization in
first twenty years of the republican reforms, the individualization itself plays a crucial role for
passing democratization process both for politics and art. Therefore, painters like Nurullah
Berk promote an opposition group against the modern and authoritarian mentality of both
westernization and secularization (Erden 2012, 100). The tendencies of this third period are
mainly about the folkloric culture of their county, apart from being stereotyped ideal-models.
Their reason was to escape from any authoritarian political reforms affecting the evolution of
art.
In addition to these evolution, the period of individualization deals with problems of
Cold War and its effects on Turkey. During the conflict between east and west, between
United State of America and Soviet Union, Turkish choice of Western bloc made artists
critical towards the capitalism. The “individualized” artist inaugurates new alternatives in
their works while advocating a leftist approach. During this third period, painters like Yüksel
Aslan became famous through their emphasis on capitalist production (Çalıkoğlu 2010, 44)
while others like Cihat Burak developed thematic paintings concerning the death of Nazım
Hikmet ( Çalıkoğlu 2010: 42-43) or the critics on liberal right-wing policies of 1980s (Figure
6).
Between 1950s and 1980s the emancipation of art encourages private collections. By
doing so, Turkish art found for itself a new client: Private sector. Instead of state control, the
end of 1980s creates an autonomous period for the involvement of contemporary art in
Turkey. Therefore, elitist approach of modernization came to an end for the artists who had
been no longer concerned with the framework of “enlightened despotism”.
The fourth and final evolution for Turkish art and museums is the period of
democratization in which the contemporary art and private museums have been emerged.
Since the end of Cold War, it can be argued that globalization stimulates more and more the
interaction between artist and social environment. The contemporary approaches replace the
notion of art from subject to subject. Especially together with private museums, the
contemporary art deals with the features of democratization in terms of identities, bodies,
public policies as well as feminism, environmentalism etc.
Since 2000s, the contemporary art has discovered democratization process by different
approaches and domains. The emergence of new and major museums created dynamism of
non-governmental undertakings. A new type of artist was born during 2000s, within the realm
of politically correctness. The exhibitions have been organized by museums like Istanbul
Modern, Pera Museum and Santral Istanbul in order to propagate the messages of
contemporary art.
Westernization, secularization, individualization and democratization categories
describing the evolution of modern and contemporary art are essential to show up the
relationship between democratization process and private efforts concerning museums and
biennales. In Turkey, the development of fine arts has been started from state-orientation in
the late 19th century, as an example of westernization and secularization targets of the nation-
state. Nowadays, the state-oriented art has been passed into individual level. Therefore, one
may start talking about freedom of expression through contemporary art, as a result or a
reason for democratization process.
II. Private Museums and Contemporary Art in Terms of Democratization
After several military coup d’état especially the main one in 1980, Turkish democracy
has tried to survive since 1980s. It can be argued that the neoliberal economy and the
globalization allow the interaction between contemporary art and democratization process in
Turkey (Yıldız 2008: 24). New forms of dialogue like conceptual arrangements, ready-made
objects, written statements, transposition, re-routings between artists and viewers in private
museums’ exhibitions encourage thinking contemporary art together with critical theories.
Private museums in Turkey tend to transcend a new sense of aesthetic. Both
collections and exhibitions of these “new age” museums like Istanbul Modern and Santral
Istanbul focus on contemporary approaches in democratic terms. This is to say, the expression
of private museums begins to question the relationship between authority and subjects. Their
issues are referred to as ethnic origins, authoritarian military rules, conservative patterns of
everyday life so on and so forth. The idea of political correctness in contemporary art reflects
the movement of Turkish democracy as mentioned below:
“Pluralistic views shaped in line with contemporary democratic thought which
recognized no limits in creativity, worked their way into Turkish art mainly as
language of art diversified parallel to these views (…) In 2000s artists draw on
vital and sociological phenomena which question the changing environment, the
city, humanity, memories, identity, migration, tradition, religion, ethnic problems,
war, terror, as they attempt to see beyond the modern” (Germaner 2008, 19)
Instead of dominant codification of tradition, private museums propose political
correctness in order to interpret contemporary democratic thought. As the anti-thesis of
modernism, the contemporary art perception of private museums regards the changing socioeconomic structure throughout the kitsch (Erdemci 2008, 275). Meanwhile, the hybrid version
of contemporary art is shown up in private museums as if it is the critical position of
democratization process towards traditional modernism in Turkey.
It can be argued that private museums start looking the “ordinary” rather than the
“grandes narratives” through contemporary art methods. By doing so, they become efficient
in the process of democratization which activates the political agendas of sub-cultures and
identities in Turkey, especially with the age of globalization. However, they do not hesitate to
mention their critical aspects against global culture of capitalism as well (Erdemci 2008, 297).
They are in favor of a pure civil society that is outside of state control mechanism.
European Union Negotiations with Turkey has given momentum to the development
of new art institutions. Since that period, a new institutional trend was born, which is called
private museums. The opening of private museums replaced the contemporary art from
individual collections to institutional ones. Therefore, the contemporary art diffuses its
democratic terms to the public opinion more fluently than before. The commercial groups of
Turkey made investments of private museums projects. Among them, there were famous
families coming from grande bourgeoisie in Turkey. For instance, Eczacıbaşı Group opened
Istanbul Modern. Sabancı Family transformed their residence into private museum as this was
the case of Frick Families’ collection in New York (Pamuk 2010, 179). Koç Family, the
richest of Turkey, is still the champion by possessing more than five museums including Pera
Museum, Museum of Technology, and Museum of Textiles.
In addition to rich families’ initiations, some private museums are emerging with the
aids of civil society. The Museum of Santral Istanbul constitutes an example of such civil
initiatives. It was opened by Istanbul Bilgi University. And its exhibitions are based on a
political defense. This is to say, it pays attention on political correctness of democratization
process in Turkey. Besides, Istanbul Modern becomes the most influential and popular private
museum of 2000s aiming the social project of democratization process in Turkey. This is
why; our analysis will focus on these two private museums: Santral Istanbul and Istanbul
Modern.
Santral Istanbul is opened in 2007, by the initiatives of Istanbul Bilgi University. This
private museum called Santral Istanbul was built in the Ottoman period as a power station.
Then a private university possessed it in order to transform as a contemporary museum.
Linked with the university institutions, Santral Istanbul consists of modern art museum,
amphitheater, library and etc. the perspective of renovation and artistic activities are similar to
Tate Modern’s in London.
Istanbul Modern is opened in 2004. The board of directors is linked with famous
Turkish pharmaceutical group, which is owned by Eczacıbaşı Family. As a museum of
contemporary art, it exhibits the works of Turkish artists. The concern of Istanbul Modern is
to express the cultural life of Turkish society in a democratization process whereas the
concern of Santral Istanbul is to express the political correctness of a “democratized” Turkish
society. In order to develop the argument, four different artistic works of these two private
museums will be compared and contrasted. The analysis will focus first of all on the
exhibitions of Istanbul Modern and secondly on the exhibitions of Santral Istanbul.
Concerning the most influential private museum of Turkey, Istanbul Modern organizes
both permanent and temporary expositions which are specifically based on democratic
culture. From the identity of urban individual to the relationship between nature and public
space, Istanbul Modern refers to several contemporary arts’ items. Artists like Balkan Naci
İslimyeli, Şener Özmen, Gülsün Karamustafa, Bedri Baykam and Canan Tolon use different
manners in order to express their democratic ideals.
In one of the exposition of Istanbul Modern, Balkan Naci İslimyeli studies the role of
traditional housewife. By doing so, he experiments the famous dichotomy between East and
West. He uses the photography of Turkish housewives in order to understand the gap between
traditional and modern in globalization era. The Figures of departing women, suffering
women, nail polish is illustrated within the artist’s series of photography named “A
Housewife’s Photonovel.”
Another exposition of Istanbul Modern gave details of Turkish feminism while
combining it with popular icons. As an example of this, Gülsün Karamustafa deals in her
works with the socio-cultural hybridization. According to her critical point of view, both
immigration and Turkish popular culture present women as an object (Çalıkoğlu 2010: 6869). In her painting called “Lord What Is This”, she brings together popular culture and
kitsch. The so-called popular version of arabesque culture is seen by her, as an obstacle for
political correctness, and thus for democratization process.
Istanbul Modern strengthens the issue between cities and immigration in his
exhibitions. Şener Özmen is one of the artists whose work in these exhibitions deals with
migration with different ways. His video named “The Road to Tate Modern” in 2003 is the
modern adaptation of Don Quixote for peripheral figures tending to achieve at the central
culture. Accordingly adopted from the famous novel, two farmers in the video ask people on
their road how they can reach Tate-Modern (Çalıkoğlu 2010: 104-105). This demonstrates an
ironic manner of deconstruction against stereotyped image of migration. The metaphor in the
video goes back to the gap between core and peripheral cities like Diyarbakir and Istanbul in
which the former tries to overcome the latter with democratic goals (Figure 7).
Another issue of private museum is the environmentalism. Through contemporary
methods, the museum of Modern Istanbul seeks to handle the abuse of green areas.
Accordingly the more ecologic terms are evaluated in exhibitions, the more tensions between
public and private spheres are solving. For instance Canan Tolon’s paintings like “Under
Pressure” or “Lots for Sale” are studying the negative effects of both real estate market and
technology over agriculture and nature in itself. Using such installations and project designs,
she considers the damages on ecology as the outcome of hybrid democratization.
As argued before, Istanbul Modern is much more concerned with socio-cultural
dimension of democratic culture rather than its political ones. However, it should not be
ignored that political themes are also relatively welcomed in this museum. The most famous
and politically engaged painter Bedri Baykam studies political issues in the exhibitions of
both Istanbul Modern and Santral Istanbul.
Bedri Baykam is a well-known Turkish artist whose works are based on photopaintings, installations, live art and collages. His paintings are always in every exhibition of
private museums. The political messages of Bedri Baykam consist of police beating up, the
memories of leftist generations of 1968, the Vietnam War and etc. (Figure 8). Therefore, he
gains much more public attention when he gives direct examples of politique réelle (Erdemci
2008, 381). For instance, his photo-paintings like “Police Beats up Silent Protestors” or “A
Decree in the Official Gazette” are exposed in Santral Istanbul and experimenting a prodemocratic manifest of the mass public.
Compared to other private museums, Santral Istanbul constitutes an “excellent
interaction” for democratization process and contemporary art in Turkey. The museum’s
major exhibition which was opened in 2007, have been bringing together 500 works by more
than 100 artists. Under the concept of “Modern and Beyond”, the curators of the museum
collected the contemporary works according to their artistic attributes to democratization
process in Turkey. In other words, this private museum organizes several exhibitions
especially against nationalist and militarist discourses in Turkey.
In this field, the most eminent study belongs to Turkish artist named Erdağ Aksel.
Accordingly, he uses installation in order to express his critics against the militarist structure
of Turkey (Erdemci 2008: 364). His sculpture quartet named “Retour de Force” presents
aggressive elements of militarism (Figure 9). In addition to Erdağ Aksel, Hüseyin Bahri
Alptekin produces a striking example of democratic culture, which is against nationalism.
Therefore, he studies a sense of common global culture. In “H-fact: Hospitality/Hostiliy”, a
group of light-boxes with various techniques, the artist makes a metaphor among hotel signs
that he came across in different cities (Erdemci 2008: 410). The metaphor is that the public
sphere and everyday life emerges within a sense of global culture: hospitality rather than
hostility.
The focus of private museums on political identities questions the ideological
construction of these identities. In the exposition of Santral Istanbul, Esra Ersen studies the
creation of social structure by state control. In her video installation, she tries to understand
the role of school uniforms in Turkey as a part of state control (Erdemci 2008: 434). In the
famous educational speech, primary students end up their phrases by saying that “I am
Turkish, I am Honest, and I am Hard-working” (Figure 10). Such self-constraint mechanism
demonstrates the undemocratic ways of civic education against which the artist produces a
sense of political correctness.
Since the emergence of neoliberal movements in Turkey, it can be argued that
innovative forms of democracy are illustrated throughout contemporary art. Turkish private
museums like Santral Istanbul and Istanbul Modern have made the contemporary art as a part
of political correctness which is in favor of democratization process in Turkey. On the one
hand, they question the social effects of undemocratic culture like Istanbul Modern; on the
other hand they criticize the lack of political correctness like Santral Istanbul.
Conclusion
To sum up, this analysis examines the relations of democratization process and
contemporary art in Turkey. From the state level to the individual level it can be argued that
the evolution of Turkish fine arts can be regarded as a part of political development of
Turkey. Therefore, the evolution which is concluded in democratization level, is divided in
four categories (westernization, secularization, individualization, democratization) and
examined by the exhibitions of two private museums (Museums of Istanbul Modern and
Santral Istanbul).
The categories describing the evolution of modern and contemporary art have been
essential to demonstrate the relationship between democratization process and private efforts
concerning museums and biennales. As discussed before, the development of art has been
started from state-orientation in the late 19th century, as an example of westernization and
secularization targets of the nation-state. Nowadays, the state-oriented art has been passed
into individual level. Therefore, one may start talking about freedom of expression through
contemporary art, as a result or a reason for democratization process.
The Turkish private museums like “Istanbul Modern”, “Sakıp Sabancı Museum”,
Santral Istanbul, and “Pera Museum” construct a socio-political framework for public opinion
since 2000s. By doing so, the exhibition of modern and contemporary art converges with the
issues of democratic policies. Pluralism, ethnic diversity, ecology, gender, millenarian
movements, mass mobility, voting, civil society are the most exposed pro-democratic themes
in these private museums. Therefore, artistic works of the exhibitions are questioning the
control mechanism of both state and popular culture in everyday life, as an obstacle for
political correctness.
The contemporary art has discovered democratization process by different approaches
and domains. The emergence of new and major museums created dynamism of nongovernmental undertakings. A new type of artist was born during 2000s, within the realm of
democratization process. The exhibitions have been organized by museums like Istanbul
Modern, Pera Museum and Santral Istanbul in order to propagate the messages of political
correctness throughout the methods of contemporary art.
When all is said and done, it may be still problematic to assume that either the public
participation or the autonomy of the museums itself is efficient enough for guaranteeing the
process of democratization, like in the example of “Liberate Tate”(Erden 2010: 97) in which
the public is against the sponsorship of museums by an increasing number of huge capitalist
companies. Therefore, it might be claimed that in spite of private initiatives, both
democratization process and contemporary art continues to be relatively hybrid, compared to
the Western examples.
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Annexes
Figure 1: Istanbul Modern (2005)
Figure 2: Santral Istanbul (2008)
Figure 3: Sanayii Nefise (First School and Museum of Fine Arts in Ottoman Period, 1883)
Figure 4: Beethoven in Palace, (Caliph Sultan Abdülmecid, 1910)
Figure 5: The Road to Revolution (Zeki Faik İzer, 1933)
Figure 6: Death of the Poet (Cihat Burak,1967)
Figure 7: Road to Tate Modern (Şener Özmen, 2003)
Figure 8: Atatürk ve İnönü (Bedri Baykam, 1994)
Figure 9: Retour de Force (Erdağ Aksel, 1995)
Figure 10: I am Turkish, I am honest, I am Hard-working (Esra Ersen, 1998)