Notes on Exhibits #1

I visited a temporary solo show by Olafúr Elíasson at İstanbul Museum of Modern Art today. Having recently re-opened in its extended base at what's now called the Galataport, the first ever contemporary art museum & gallery hybrid in Türkiye has also a rather rich permanent collection, too.

As is the case with many a collection rotating their individual pieces in a world where 99% of art works never leave the warehouses if not basements unto the public gaze, it's good they are doing it.

I suggest you tour the Floating Islands exhibit that chronicles the Turkish art history starting from early Republican area artists and honoring some contemporary peers of ours, you'll be able to catch a glimpse of a rather large selection of Yüksel Arslan's Artures, Mehmet Güleryüz varieties from a wood-working sports car to Easy Rider vibes of a canvas to a Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu coffeebreak that reminisces of early Esbjörn Svensson Trio notes.

Other notable figures include Halil Altındere whose metaverse mockery misses an opportunity to point out to the fact that the museum in fact could have tokenized the proofs to their ownership of the collection in an offchain coprocessors comfily securing itself in a TEE enclave which could point out to some onchain credit scores which could be used as composable fintech art pieces, too; a Refik Anadol immersive which I found a tad boring; a series of tedium and ennui in the form of videoart depending on the weather and your passport; some genuinely intriguing Aliye Berger drawings, an Avni Arbaş cargo that takes you out in the open sea of international trade; and other good artists, too.

Those Elíasson pieces are not Rauschenberg remakes, they are in fact watercolor pieces. I suggest you immerse yourself into that water world of a room, too.