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Crystal Clear

December 22, 2020 - March 14, 2021

Ranging from almost perfect transparency to complete opacity, crystals have been used in all areas of human activity, from science to magic, from technology to healing. Scientists typically describe crystals as “growing”, even though in their eyes they are not alive. Many living organisms, such as mollusks, are able to produce crystals. In ancestral cultures, crystals and minerals are regarded as sentient. Indeed, they constitute a perfect example of the fluid and porous boundaries between the animate and inanimate, organic and inorganic. Taking crystals and their vibrant matter as a point of departure, the exhibition Crystal Clear went beyond their emblematic use. Rather it aimed to develop a contained ecosystem with diverse entanglements of the production, display, and recycling of the artistic, curatorial, and institutional work, material and immaterial. 

In collaboration with all the participating artists, Crystal Clear devised methods and tools for sustainable curating, going beyond just thinking about ecology or sustainability, but rather inventing and enacting principles allowing the reduction of the carbon footprint of exhibition making: radical limits on the shipping of objects, local collaborative production of exhibited work, creative recycling strategies, and extremely reduced travel for all the participants.

Conceived long before the advent of Covid-19 pandemic, the project was already developing models of programmatic changes for exhibition production. Interested in the imperfect contaminated transparencies of crystals and opacities of the soil, the project’s pre-Covid stage critically intersected with ideas from two books, “Down to Earth” by Bruno Latour and “The Transparency Society” by Byung-Chul Han. Today anyone can obtain information about anything. Everything—and everyone—has become transparent, unveiled and exposed. Yet transparency has its dark side and can turn into opacity, without us even noticing it.

But the pandemic shifted and bent many of our initial questions, which moved en masse into public discussions, getting new perspectives and points of view. Working through Covid conditions, Crystal Clear offered the artists the possibility of engaging with these and other current mutations of our environment, seen through the crystalline optics.

Curated by Elena Sorokina, the exhibition featured the artists Sammy Baloji, Minia Biabiany, Katinka Bock, Bianca Bondi, Gaelle Choisne, Sinem Dişli, Kıymet Daştan, Elmas Deniz, Gluklya (Natalia Pershina-Yakimanskaya), Deniz Gül, Ilana Halperin in collaboration with Knitstanbul, Gülsün Karamustafa, Yazan Khalili, Paul Maheke, Şener Özmen, İz Öztat, Hale Tenger, Güneş Terkol, Berkay Tuncay and Adrien Vescovi.

Images
Kıymet Daştan 
I Am Afraid To (Not) Forget, 2019

Güneş Terkol
The Dictionary of Distance, 2020

Yazan Khalili
Medusa, 2020


İz Öztat

Confused Examination Under Given Circumstances, 2020 

Sammy Baloji
Artisanal mining site #2
, 2011 

3D Virtual Tour

Exhibition Catalogue

Crystal Clear

Crystal Clear

Ranging from almost perfect transparency to complete opacity, crystals have been used in all areas of human activity, from science to magic, from technology to healing. Scientists typically...

Video

Lost Winds

Pera Film offers an online viewing of a selection of artworks from the Crystal Clear exhibition at Pera Museum.

 


Pera Learning

Workshops For Teachers and School Groups

Pera Museum Learning Programs organize a series of colorful online workshops for teachers and school groups under the scope of the exhibition Crystal Clear.

Crystal Clear
Workshops with Artists

Pera Museum Learning Programs organize online artist workshops for young and adults under the scope of the exhibition Crystal Clear.

Half-Term Holiday Workshops

Pera Learning is organizing various online workshops for children between the ages of 4 to 12 as part of its Half-Term Holiday Learning Programs from January 26 to February 13, 2021.

Dancing on Architecture

Dancing on Architecture

I think it was Frank Zappa – though others claim it was Laurie Anderson – who said in an interview that ‘writing on music is much like dancing on architecture’. 

From Cypresses to Turkish Landscapes

From Cypresses to Turkish Landscapes

Among the most interesting themes in the oeuvre of Prassinos are cypresses, trees, and Turkish landscapes. The cypress woods in Üsküdar he saw every time he stepped out on the terrace of their house in İstanbul or the trees in Petits Champs must have been strong images of childhood for Prassinos. 

Introducing… Turkish coffee!

Introducing… Turkish coffee!

Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, Pera Museum invites artist Benoît Hamet to reinterpret key pieces from its collections, casting a humourous eye over ‘historical’ events, both imagined and factual.