15th Istanbul Biennial

Pera Museum hosted the 15^th Istanbul Biennial, organized by Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) and sponsored by Koç Holding. The 15^th Istanbul Biennial brought together artworks by 55 artists from 32 countries, all addressing different notions of home, belonging and neighbourhood.

As one of the main venues for the 15^th Istanbul Biennial, the exhibited artists at Pera Museum included Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Alejandro Almanza Pereda, Burçak Bingöl, Monica Bonvici, Louise Bourgeois, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Vajiko Chachkhiani, Gözde İlkin, Liliana Maresca, Lee Miller, Aude Pariset, Sim Chi Yin, Dayanita Singh, Tatiana Trouvé, Tsang Kin-Wah, Andra Ursuta, and Fred Wilson.

The 15^th Istanbul Biennial was presented through the museum’s temporary galleries, with Biennial works interspersed within the museum’s Orientalist Painting collection exhibition Intersecting Worlds. The exhibited works explored questions related to family values and structures in a new aesthetic, while also showing a diversity of different artistic positions using a variety of media such as installation, painting and sculpture.

Elmgreen & Dragset, curators of the 15^th Istanbul Biennial on “a good neighbour”:
“Your neighbour might be someone who lives quite a different life from yours. And hopefully you, unlike many politicians lately, are not the one who chooses to deal with your fear of otherness by fencing yourself off. The artists in the 15^th Istanbul Biennial raise questions about ideas of home, neighbourhood, belonging and co-existence from multiple perspectives. Some of the artworks examine how our domestic living conditions and modes have changed and how our neighbourhoods have transformed, while others focus on how we cope with today’s geopolitical challenges on a micro-level. The Biennial takes its form from the invited artists’ personal or analytical statements: an engaging mixture of hopes and visions, of sadness and indignation, of history and present day.”

Curated by the artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset, 15^th Istanbul Biennial brings together a variety of artworks dealing with different notions of home and neighbourhood, the Biennial is taking place at Pera Museum, Istanbul Modern, Galata Greek Primary School, Ark Kültür, an artist collective’s studio, and Küçük Mustafa Paşa Hammam.