Nudes With Mirrors
Nudes With Mirrors

Although mythological themes are not commonly encountered in Turkish painting, it is possible to see variations of widespread themes such as the Venus at her Toilet. 

The Search for Form
The Search for Form

A series of small and rather similar nudes Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu and Eren Eyüboğlu produced in the early 1930s almost resemble a ‘visual conversation’ that focus on a pictorial search. It is also possible to find the visual reflections of this earlier search in the synthesis Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu reached with his stylistic abstractions in the 1950s.

Postcard Nudes
Postcard Nudes

The various states of viewing nudity entered the Ottoman world on postcards before paintings. These postcards appeared in the 1890s, and became widespread in the 1910s, following the proclamation of the Second Constitutional Monarchy, traveling from hand to hand, city to city. 

Midnight Horror Stories: <br> Witches’ Sun <br> Mehmet Berk Yaltırık
Midnight Horror Stories:
Witches’ Sun
Mehmet Berk Yaltırık

I walk over rocks hot as iron under the September sun. I can make out a few lines in the distance, and a few cracked rocks, but apart from those, not a single tree, not one plant

Midnight Horror Stories: The Landlord <br> Hakan Bıçakcı
Midnight Horror Stories: The Landlord
Hakan Bıçakcı

Three people sleeping side by side. On the uncomfortable seats of the stuffy airplane in the air. Three friends. I’m the friend in the window seat. The other two are a couple, Emre and Melisa. I’m alone, they are together. And another difference. I’ve only closed my eyes. They are asleep.

Midnight Horror Stories:  The Moon Pool <br> Işın Beril Tetik
Midnight Horror Stories: The Moon Pool
Işın Beril Tetik

About a year ago, Ela was dead for seven minutes. Death had come to her as she was watching her younger brother play gleefully in the sandpit at the park. A sudden flash that washed her world with a burning white light, a merciless roar resembling that of a monster… 

Midnight Horror Stories: Pollens, Photosynthesis & Rock ‘N’ Roll <br> Murat Başekim
Midnight Horror Stories: Pollens, Photosynthesis & Rock ‘N’ Roll
Murat Başekim

Pera Museum Blog is launching a new series of creepy stories in collaboration with Turkey’s Fantasy and Science Fiction Arts Association (FABISAD). The Association’s member writers are presenting newly commissioned short horror stories inspired by the artworks of Mario Prassinos as part of the Museum’s In Pursuit of an Artist: Istanbul-Paris-Istanbul exhibition. The third story is by Murat Başekim! The stories will be published online throughout the exhibition. Stay tuned!

Midnight Horror Stories: The Last Ferry <br> Galip Dursun
Midnight Horror Stories: The Last Ferry
Galip Dursun

I remembered a game as I was waiting in the passenger lounge for the ferry to arrive just a few minutes ago. A game we used to play at home when I was young, in my country that is very far away from here, a relic from the distant past; I don’t even remember how we used to play it. The kind of game that makes me feel a thousand times lonelier than I already am among the crowd waiting to get on the ferry.

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. 

Fluid Identities  Creating an Identity / Hybrid Identities
Fluid Identities Creating an Identity / Hybrid Identities

A firm believer in the idea that a collection needs to be upheld at least by four generations and comparing this continuity to a relay race, Nahit Kabakcı began creating the Huma Kabakcı Collection from the 1980s onwards. Today, the collection can be considered one of the most important and outstanding examples among the rare, consciously created, and long-lasting ones of its kind in Turkey.

Shaping Forms  The Migrant Body / Shaping Ideologies
Shaping Forms The Migrant Body / Shaping Ideologies

Constituting the entirety of all the perceived aspects of an object creating their own order, form not only contains visual elements and characteristics, but can also help elucidate concepts. 

Memory Building Memories / Memory Room / Memento Mori
Memory Building Memories / Memory Room / Memento Mori

Each memory tells an intimate story; each collection presents us with the reality of containing an intimate story as well. The collection is akin to a whole in which many memories and stories of the artist, the viewer, and the collector are brought together. At the heart of a collection is memory, nurtured from the past and projecting into the future.

Modernity Building the Modern / Reshaping the Modern
Modernity Building the Modern / Reshaping the Modern

A firm believer in the idea that a collection needs to be upheld at least by four generations and comparing this continuity to a relay race, Nahit Kabakcı began creating the Huma Kabakcı Collection from the 1980s onwards. Today, the collection can be considered one of the most important and outstanding examples among the rare, consciously created, and long-lasting ones of its kind in Turkey.

Face to Face
Face to Face

A firm believer in the idea that a collection needs to be upheld at least by four generations and comparing this continuity to a relay race, Nahit Kabakcı began creating the Huma Kabakcı Collection from the 1980s onwards. 

Symbols
Symbols

Pera Museum’s Cold Front from the Balkans exhibition curated by Ali Akay and Alenka Gregorič brings together contemporary artists from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia.

It’s better to burn out than to fade away
It’s better to burn out than to fade away

In 1962 Philip Corner, one of the most prominent members of the Fluxus movement, caused a great commotion in serious music circles when during a performance entitled Piano Activities he climbed up onto a grand piano and began to kick it while other members of the group attacked it with saws, hammers and all kinds of other implements.

Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests
Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests

Between 1963 and 1966 Andy Warhol worked at making film portraits of all sorts of characters linked to New York art circles. Famous people and anonymous people were filmed by Andy Warhol’s 16 mm camera, for almost four minutes, without any instructions other than ‘to get in front of the camera’.

Nam June Paik Video Art’s Pioneer
Nam June Paik Video Art’s Pioneer

Nam June Paik was video art’s pioneer (1932 –2006). It is interesting that while Warhol and Nameth were experimenting with psychedelic happenings that combined rock, film and performance, the video art pioneers Nam June Paik, Stephen Beck, Eric Siegel and Steina Vasulka were researching in a similar direction.

Midnight Stories: COGITO <br> Tevfik Uyar
Midnight Stories: COGITO
Tevfik Uyar

He had imagined the court room as a big place. It wasn’t. It was about the size of his living room, with an elevation at one end, with a dais on it. The judges and the attorneys sat there. Below it was an old wooden rail, worn out in some places. That was his place. There was another seat for his lawyer. At the back, about 20 or 30 chairs were stowed out for the non-existent crowd.

Midnight Stories: The Red Button <br> Funda Özlem Şeran
Midnight Stories: The Red Button
Funda Özlem Şeran

It was a quiet night in the dessert. Even the mice weren’t around. A few LEDs blinked in the dark, and the sound of a fan filled the infinite void. The conversation cutting the silence seemed to go nowhere.

Midnight Stories: Hotel of Retro Dreams <br> Doğu Yücel
Midnight Stories: Hotel of Retro Dreams
Doğu Yücel

He didn’t expect this from me. And I hadn’t expected that we would decide to get married that day, at that moment. Everything happened all of a sudden, but exactly like it was supposed to happen in our day. We thought of the idea of marriage simultaneously, we smiled simultaneously, blinking and opening our eyes in unison. 

Midnight Stories: The Soul <br> Aşkın Güngör
Midnight Stories: The Soul
Aşkın Güngör

The wind blows, rubbing against my legs made of layers of metal and wires, swaying the leaves of grass that have shot up from the cracks in the tarmac, and going off to the windows that look like the eyes of dead children in the wrecked buildings that seem to be everywhere as far as the eye can see.

Journey to the East
Journey to the East

Pera Museum presents an exhibition of French artist Félix Ziem, one of the most original landscape painters of the 19th century. This week we are sharing Ziem’s work inspired by Istanbul and “the East”! 

Félix Ziem (1821-1911) A nomadic, unclassifiable, and eccentric artist
Félix Ziem (1821-1911) A nomadic, unclassifiable, and eccentric artist

French artist Félix Ziem is one of the most original landscape painters of the 19thcentury. The exhibition Wanderer on the Sea of Light presents Ziem as an artist who left his mark on 19th century painting and who is mostly known for his paintings of Istanbul and Venice, where the city and the sea are intertwined. 

Five Unmissable Istanbul Paintings of Félix Ziem
Five Unmissable Istanbul Paintings of Félix Ziem

Félix Ziem is accepted as one of the well-known artists of the romantic landscape painting, and has been followed closely by art lovers and collectors of all periods since. He had a profound influence on generations of artists after him, and was the first artist whose works were acquired by the Louvre while he was still alive.

Between Impressionism and Orientalism
Between Impressionism and Orientalism

Pera Museum presents an exhibition of French artist Félix Ziem, one of the most original landscape painters of the 19th century. The exhibition Wanderer on the Sea of Light presents Ziem as an artist who left his mark on 19th century painting and who is mostly known for his paintings of Istanbul and Venice, where the city and the sea are intertwined. Through the exhibition, we will be sharing detailed information about the artist and the artworks. 

The Painter of Venice
The Painter of Venice

Pera Museum presents an exhibition of French artist Félix Ziem, one of the most original landscape painters of the 19th century.