Ali Artun: Giacometti’s cul-de-sac of reality

Conference

April 4, 2015 / 14:30

Giacometti has always tried to see and capture reality. But he can’t. In his quest for reality, he chips away at his early sculptures, reducing them to nothingness. He eventually begins to work with “surreal” objects and revolutionizes the field. Shortly thereafter, however, he returns to the age-old problematic of aesthetics and attempts to discover the interaction between art and reality. He gets stuck with endless copies. He fails to complete his brother’s portrait and bust for five years, even though he works on them every day. He admits he “can’t even finish a head.” In the end, however, he creates an aesthetics, a philosophy out of this cul-de-sac of reality that imprisoned him. He inspires the existentialists as much as he does the surrealists.

Free of admissions. Conference language is Turkish.
Limited space, drop in.

Ali Artun graduated from METU Department of Architecture. He is the founder and member of numerous associations in art and architecture. He took part in the establishment of Gallery Nev in 1984. Since then, he has organized numerous exhibitions for Gallery Nev in Ankara as well as other exhibitions in Ankara and Istanbul. He edited over a hundred titles published by Gallery Nev. Since 2002, he directs the “Art-Life” series that brings together works in cultural criticism, and teaches in the Graduate Program of Art History at ITU.

Temporary Exhibition

Alberto Giacometti

Pera Museum proudly announced the first major exhibition of sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti in Turkey taking a retrospective approach. Organized in collaboration with the Giacometti Foundation, Paris, this exhibition explored Giacometti’s prolific life, most of which the artist led in his studio in Montparnasse, through the works of his early period as well his late work, including one unfinished piece.

Alberto Giacometti

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”! 

From two portraits of children…

From two portraits of children…

The Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation’s Orientalist Painting Collection includes two children’s portraits that are often featured in exhibitions on the second floor of the Pera Museum. These portraits both date back to the early 20th century, and were made four years apart. One depicts Prince Abdürrahim Efendi, son of Sultan Abdulhamid II, while the figure portrayed on the other is Nazlı, the daughter of Osman Hamdi Bey.

Medicinal Herbs in Byzantium

Medicinal Herbs in Byzantium

Knowledge of plants and the practice of healing are closely entwined. The toxic or hallucinogenic nature of some roots, and the dangers associated with picking them, conferred a mythical or magical character and power.