MEET AT EXHIBITION
Forum Show at SALT Beyoğlu SALT Research’s Art Archive is showcasing a collection of photographs of exhibitions that have taken place between 1950 and 1995. In the Forum at SALT Beyoğlu, one assemblage highlights Turkey’s art history with an added touch of nostalgia given the recent closure of art venues amid pandemic It is a simple, understated curation, but in that way familiar and comforting, almost like stepping into the family home for an informal teatime roundtable with relatives and neighbors, poring over black-and-white photographs to reminisce about times at once older, and somehow younger. Ahmet Müderrisoğlu is in mid-pose. He could be playing air guitar, clenching one fist at his hip as he raises his left hand to the sky under the punk mop locks that cover his face entirely. The other seven in the picture appear as out of an interior winter scene in Istanbul among the heady airs of its mid-1990s art world heyday. Müderrisoğlu is an abstract painter with a pop edge, employing vibrant, artificial colors as if out of an advertising scheme for the uncultured swayed by flashes of instantly gratifying, common images on repeat, however, bent out of shape. In the photo on display at the Forum in SALT Beyoğlu, from the opening night of a show at Devlet Han, he stands next to a stoic, thick-jacketed and long-haired Ismet Doğan. Doğan is as emotionless as he seems in more recent profiles, where he is often standing beside his mixed media canvases of semi-abstract naturalist representationalism. He is the only one in the photo not smiling or even animated. He must be taking himself very seriously. But the others do not. A youthful, smiling Ali Akay places his hand on the shoulder of a warmly grinning Gülsün Karamustafa. Akay had just become an associate professor and would go on to head the Mimar Sinan University’s sociology department. Through her practices as an artist and filmmaker, Karamustafa also tackled social themes, such as gender and ethnicity. Pictured from left to right, Ahmet Müderrisoğlu, Ismet Doğan, Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Emre Zeytinoğlu, Bülent Şangar and sitting Ali Akay, Gülsün Karamustafa and Müşerref Zeytinoğlu. (PHOTO COURTESY OF SALT Research) Pictured from left to right, Ahmet Müderrisoğlu, Ismet Doğan, Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Emre Zeytinoğlu, Bülent Şangar and sitting Ali Akay, Gülsün Karamustafa and Müşerref Zeytinoğlu. (PHOTO COURTESY OF SALT Research) Müşerref Zeytinoğlu laid down on her side, and with her head in her hand, looked up and smiled for the camera. Her research has focused on the skin and the body as the head of the fashion and textile design department at Yeditepe University in Istanbul where she teaches courses on drawing techniques and color analysis. Her blonde hair matched with the casual sweater worn by Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, a slightly rotund sort who tilted his head
24 | MeeTurkey | September 2020
