Private Museums in Turkey and Their Role in Democratization Process Ahmet Emre ATEŞ

“Private Museums in Turkey and Their Role in Democratization Process” Ahmet Emre ATEŞ∗

Abstract This paper aims at examining the influence of private museums on democratization in Turkey. It can be argued that the cultural institutions like “Istanbul Modern”, “Santral Istanbul” and “Pera Museum” have an indispensable role for democratic consolidation in Turkey since the beginnings of 21st century. Therefore, these private museums have gained public interest more than pro-democratic and non-governmental organizations in Turkey. By doing so, they are configurating the public opinion within the political and cultural framework. Keywords: Democratization, Private Museums, Culture, Public Art

Introduction Two months ago in Istanbul, a new museum opened his doors to the public: The Museum of Innocence. Among other private museums which have emerged since 2000 in Turkey, the Museum of Innocence has a particular space. It is based on the novel of Orhan Pamuk, first Turkish Nobel Laureate author. Published on 2008, the novel named “Museum of Innocence”, describes history of an obsessive love in 1975, between a wealthy businessman and a lower class shop girl without regard to the interests of the girl. At the end, the man becomes a collector of the personal objects of his love. Orhan Pamuk’s own museum, The Museum of Innocence, is a collection of those objects. He established the museum, while displaying a collection of everyday life in Istanbul during the period in which the novel is set. The reason of mentioning such museum is that the concept of private museums in Turkey initiates the public attention towards the diverse aspects of art and culture. By doing so, the transmission of ideas such as modernity, democracy, feminism, popular culture etc. spread out more than before. Therefore, it can be argued that especially the increasing number of private museums gives an impetus to social and political changes. Throughout the analysis, the interaction between private museums and democratic consciousness will be discussed within the impacts of museums’ exhibitions and their masterpieces. So far as the private museums are concerned, their masterpieces on modern and contemporary art are interesting in order to regard the importance of such cultural institutions over Turkish democratization. Private museums like “Istanbul Modern”, “Santral Istanbul”, “Sakıp Sabancı Museum” and “Pera Museum” construct a socio-political framework for public opinion ∗

Research Assistant, University of Istanbul, Department of Political Science and International Relations

(Figure 1 and Figure 2). Thus the exhibition of modern and contemporary art converges with the issues of democratic policies. Pluralism, ethnic diversity, ecology, gender, millenarian movements, mass mobility, voting, civil society are the most exposed pro-democratic themes in these private museums. In this research, I will distinguish two main chapters. On the one hand, the first chapter will focus on the evolution of modern art in Turkey and its relationship with the political framework. On the other hand, the second chapter will focus on the relations and a possible impact of Turkish private museums and their contemporary exhibitions-masterpieces over the democratization process from 2000s up to nowadays. By doing so, the interaction between Turkish contemporary art and democratization process will be examined. In other words, although it is still questionable to determine the influence of contemporary arts and museums, it can be argued that contemporary art serves as a medium for mass mobility during democratization process. It tries to create an esprit du monde which is compatible with political development of the countries since 2000s.

I. The Evolution of Turkish Modern Art

Before analyzing the interaction between private museums and democratization process in Turkey, the history of Turkish modern art should be summarized in order to show how closely linked the framework between politics and art. For this reason, four periods of artistic evolution have to be categorized in this chapter. In my point of view, the evolution of modern art in Turkey is articulated by four different tendencies that shaped the political framework as well. The first period of such categorization can be entitled as the process of “westernization” both for politics and art during which the late century of Ottoman Empire is concerned that is the 19th century. The second period can be categorized as the process of “secularization” which is based on the principles of Turkish nation-state building between First and Second World War. The third period is regarded as the period of “individualization” in which the independent sensitivity of the artists becomes important since the transition of Turkish multiparty system. The fourth period is that of contemporary “democratization” which is still influent together with the emergence of private museums during 2000s. Within Turkish art, the first example of political influences on modern artistic works dates back the Ottoman reforms of 19th century. The Ottoman reforms of that time are mainly about institutional reforms and based on modernization. However, the idea of modernization

was referred to as a sense of westernization. This is why, most of intellectuals were sent to Europe, in order to acquire what is the “modern” so that they bring it back and apply at home for the state reforms. Among these intellectuals, there were politicians, journalists, writers and painters. Most of them were educated within the ranks of military and civil bureaucracy. This first period is mainly about state reforms. Therefore, the artistic evolution is mainly state-oriented. By arguing the westernization aspect of the first period, we should refer to the movement of orientalism. For example, the first exhibition is inaugurated in 1873 by Şeker Ahmet Paşa whose paintings consist of landscapes and still-life in terms of orientalist approaches. Ten years later, in 1883, the first school of fine arts (Sanayi-i Nefise Mektebi) was founded and based on fine arts education in Europe, concerning both curriculum and methods (Çalıkoğlu 2010, 18). Most strikingly, the school is headed by Osman Hamdi Bey, the director of Imperial Ottoman Museums (Figure 3). The nomination of Osman Hamdi Bey as school director is important for two reasons. The first reason is that he was a well-known orientalist painter of the period. He was disciple of French orientalist painters like Jean-Louis Gérome, Gustave Boulanger in Ecole des BeauxArts in Paris (Erden 2012, 10). The main idea of his paintings is about eastern and Islamic ways of life. The second reason is that he came from the Museum of Archaeology, so that he would combine both the concepts of museum and fine arts school. Concerning the first evolution of Turkish modern art, it can be argued that it is dependent on political reforms of late Ottoman period. The political reforms of modernization render the modern art more westernized. While being both state and elite-oriented, this first period underlines the necessity of ottoman dynasty for continuing political reforms. This is why, even an ottoman caliph started to paint the westernized aspect of Ottoman palaces. (Figure 4) The second period is characterized by political and social secularization. Compared to the first period, the role of women is strong and that of religion is decreasing in this period of secularization. The fine art of secularization period is still state-oriented. Yet with a difference: This new period is a part of nation-state building process in Turkey. Therefore, the new republican regime tries to reshape the artistic development. The main target is the secularization, the fine arts of Turkish Republic focuses on art-state-society relationship. The republican one-party regime encouraged on the one hand, private banks and government agencies to develop institutional collections. On the other hand, it organized so called Homeland Tours for the artists, to discover and observe the Anatolian territories of the nation-state. In contrast to the first period of Turkish Modern art during Ottoman reforms, the

Turkish republican reform aims at the public approval for the nation-state modernity. For this reason, the second period of Turkish modern art deals with the secular and modernized policies of the nation-state. This is why, the painting art was considered as “Pictures of the Revolution” “Pictures of the revolution” are mostly exhibited in the Museum of Painting and Sculpture which was founded in 1937 by the directive of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of Turkish Republic. This period of one-party state concentrates the modern art, as a part of a revolution from above. Civil and military bureaucracy encouraged a sort of vanguard modernity throughout the education and the art. Indeed, both museums and schools have respected the Bauhaus models through which the technology and the modern art have combined the political goals of the republican secularization. During the period of secularization, the so-called “Pictures of the revolution” have been grouped in four different frameworks. Firstly the war of Independence ended up with the proclamation of the Turkish Republic; secondly the features of the republican reforms; thirdly the cult of the revolution leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk; and fourthly the image of secular women have been illustrated in the painting arts and museums. Obviously, the secular image of the republic is dominant in the Fine Arts’ perception of 1930s. On the one hand, eminent painters like Hikmet Onat has descriptions on War of Independence, on the other hand another painter Zeki Faik İzer becomes famous with his own compositions on the secular side of republican reforms (Findley 2010: 272). By the same taken, Feyhaman Duran is known as an official painter of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s portraits while İbrahim Çallı’s works focuses on nude studies in order to demonstrate the secularization attempts of Turkish Republic. Briefly, the first twenty years of Turkish Republic until the end of Second World War have been managed through secularization of society through onedominant-party system (Duben 2007:110). Therefore, this situation renders the concept of modern art as a part of secularization process. (Figure 5) The third period concerning the evolution of modern art in Turkey is based on the individualization. The individualization means the independent sensitivity of artists. Compared to the period of westernization in Ottoman era and the period of secularization in first twenty years of the republican reforms, the individualization itself plays a crucial role for passing democratization process both for politics and art. Therefore, painters like Nurullah Berk promote an opposition group against the modern and authoritarian mentality of both westernization and secularization (Erden 2012, 100). The tendencies of this third period are mainly about the folkloric culture of their county, apart from being stereotyped ideal-models.

Their reason was to escape from any authoritarian political reforms affecting the evolution of art. In addition to these evolution, the period of individualization deals with problems of Cold War and its effects on Turkey. During the conflict between east and west, between United State of America and Soviet Union, Turkish choice of Western bloc made artists critical towards the capitalism. The “individualized” artist inaugurates new alternatives in their works while advocating a leftist approach. During this third period, painters like Yüksel Aslan became famous through their emphasis on capitalist production (Çalıkoğlu 2010, 44) while others like Cihat Burak developed thematic paintings concerning the death of Nazım Hikmet ( Çalıkoğlu 2010: 42-43) or the critics on liberal right-wing policies of 1980s (Figure 6). Between 1950s and 1980s the emancipation of art encourages private collections. By doing so, Turkish art found for itself a new client: Private sector. Instead of state control, the end of 1980s creates an autonomous period for the involvement of contemporary art in Turkey. Therefore, elitist approach of modernization came to an end for the artists who had been no longer concerned with the framework of “enlightened despotism”. The fourth and final evolution for Turkish art and museums is the period of democratization in which the contemporary art and private museums have been emerged. Since the end of Cold War, it can be argued that globalization stimulates more and more the interaction between artist and social environment. The contemporary approaches replace the notion of art from subject to subject. Especially together with private museums, the contemporary art deals with the features of democratization in terms of identities, bodies, public policies as well as feminism, environmentalism etc. Since 2000s, the contemporary art has discovered democratization process by different approaches and domains. The emergence of new and major museums created dynamism of non-governmental undertakings. A new type of artist was born during 2000s, within the realm of politically correctness. The exhibitions have been organized by museums like Istanbul Modern, Pera Museum and Santral Istanbul in order to propagate the messages of contemporary art. Westernization, secularization, individualization and democratization categories describing the evolution of modern and contemporary art are essential to show up the relationship between democratization process and private efforts concerning museums and biennales. In Turkey, the development of fine arts has been started from state-orientation in the late 19th century, as an example of westernization and secularization targets of the nation-

state. Nowadays, the state-oriented art has been passed into individual level. Therefore, one may start talking about freedom of expression through contemporary art, as a result or a reason for democratization process.

II. Private Museums and Contemporary Art in Terms of Democratization

After several military coup d’état especially the main one in 1980, Turkish democracy has tried to survive since 1980s. It can be argued that the neoliberal economy and the globalization allow the interaction between contemporary art and democratization process in Turkey (Yıldız 2008: 24). New forms of dialogue like conceptual arrangements, ready-made objects, written statements, transposition, re-routings between artists and viewers in private museums’ exhibitions encourage thinking contemporary art together with critical theories. Private museums in Turkey tend to transcend a new sense of aesthetic. Both collections and exhibitions of these “new age” museums like Istanbul Modern and Santral Istanbul focus on contemporary approaches in democratic terms. This is to say, the expression of private museums begins to question the relationship between authority and subjects. Their issues are referred to as ethnic origins, authoritarian military rules, conservative patterns of everyday life so on and so forth. The idea of political correctness in contemporary art reflects the movement of Turkish democracy as mentioned below: “Pluralistic views shaped in line with contemporary democratic thought which recognized no limits in creativity, worked their way into Turkish art mainly as language of art diversified parallel to these views (…) In 2000s artists draw on vital and sociological phenomena which question the changing environment, the city, humanity, memories, identity, migration, tradition, religion, ethnic problems, war, terror, as they attempt to see beyond the modern” (Germaner 2008, 19)

Instead of dominant codification of tradition, private museums propose political correctness in order to interpret contemporary democratic thought. As the anti-thesis of modernism, the contemporary art perception of private museums regards the changing socioeconomic structure throughout the kitsch (Erdemci 2008, 275). Meanwhile, the hybrid version of contemporary art is shown up in private museums as if it is the critical position of democratization process towards traditional modernism in Turkey. It can be argued that private museums start looking the “ordinary” rather than the “grandes narratives” through contemporary art methods. By doing so, they become efficient

in the process of democratization which activates the political agendas of sub-cultures and identities in Turkey, especially with the age of globalization. However, they do not hesitate to mention their critical aspects against global culture of capitalism as well (Erdemci 2008, 297). They are in favor of a pure civil society that is outside of state control mechanism. European Union Negotiations with Turkey has given momentum to the development of new art institutions. Since that period, a new institutional trend was born, which is called private museums. The opening of private museums replaced the contemporary art from individual collections to institutional ones. Therefore, the contemporary art diffuses its democratic terms to the public opinion more fluently than before. The commercial groups of Turkey made investments of private museums projects. Among them, there were famous families coming from grande bourgeoisie in Turkey. For instance, Eczacıbaşı Group opened Istanbul Modern. Sabancı Family transformed their residence into private museum as this was the case of Frick Families’ collection in New York (Pamuk 2010, 179). Koç Family, the richest of Turkey, is still the champion by possessing more than five museums including Pera Museum, Museum of Technology, and Museum of Textiles. In addition to rich families’ initiations, some private museums are emerging with the aids of civil society. The Museum of Santral Istanbul constitutes an example of such civil initiatives. It was opened by Istanbul Bilgi University. And its exhibitions are based on a political defense. This is to say, it pays attention on political correctness of democratization process in Turkey. Besides, Istanbul Modern becomes the most influential and popular private museum of 2000s aiming the social project of democratization process in Turkey. This is why; our analysis will focus on these two private museums: Santral Istanbul and Istanbul Modern. Santral Istanbul is opened in 2007, by the initiatives of Istanbul Bilgi University. This private museum called Santral Istanbul was built in the Ottoman period as a power station. Then a private university possessed it in order to transform as a contemporary museum. Linked with the university institutions, Santral Istanbul consists of modern art museum, amphitheater, library and etc. the perspective of renovation and artistic activities are similar to Tate Modern’s in London. Istanbul Modern is opened in 2004. The board of directors is linked with famous Turkish pharmaceutical group, which is owned by Eczacıbaşı Family. As a museum of contemporary art, it exhibits the works of Turkish artists. The concern of Istanbul Modern is to express the cultural life of Turkish society in a democratization process whereas the concern of Santral Istanbul is to express the political correctness of a “democratized” Turkish

society. In order to develop the argument, four different artistic works of these two private museums will be compared and contrasted. The analysis will focus first of all on the exhibitions of Istanbul Modern and secondly on the exhibitions of Santral Istanbul. Concerning the most influential private museum of Turkey, Istanbul Modern organizes both permanent and temporary expositions which are specifically based on democratic culture. From the identity of urban individual to the relationship between nature and public space, Istanbul Modern refers to several contemporary arts’ items. Artists like Balkan Naci İslimyeli, Şener Özmen, Gülsün Karamustafa, Bedri Baykam and Canan Tolon use different manners in order to express their democratic ideals. In one of the exposition of Istanbul Modern, Balkan Naci İslimyeli studies the role of traditional housewife. By doing so, he experiments the famous dichotomy between East and West. He uses the photography of Turkish housewives in order to understand the gap between traditional and modern in globalization era. The Figures of departing women, suffering women, nail polish is illustrated within the artist’s series of photography named “A Housewife’s Photonovel.” Another exposition of Istanbul Modern gave details of Turkish feminism while combining it with popular icons. As an example of this, Gülsün Karamustafa deals in her works with the socio-cultural hybridization. According to her critical point of view, both immigration and Turkish popular culture present women as an object (Çalıkoğlu 2010: 6869). In her painting called “Lord What Is This”, she brings together popular culture and kitsch. The so-called popular version of arabesque culture is seen by her, as an obstacle for political correctness, and thus for democratization process. Istanbul Modern strengthens the issue between cities and immigration in his exhibitions. Şener Özmen is one of the artists whose work in these exhibitions deals with migration with different ways. His video named “The Road to Tate Modern” in 2003 is the modern adaptation of Don Quixote for peripheral figures tending to achieve at the central culture. Accordingly adopted from the famous novel, two farmers in the video ask people on their road how they can reach Tate-Modern (Çalıkoğlu 2010: 104-105). This demonstrates an ironic manner of deconstruction against stereotyped image of migration. The metaphor in the video goes back to the gap between core and peripheral cities like Diyarbakir and Istanbul in which the former tries to overcome the latter with democratic goals (Figure 7). Another issue of private museum is the environmentalism. Through contemporary methods, the museum of Modern Istanbul seeks to handle the abuse of green areas. Accordingly the more ecologic terms are evaluated in exhibitions, the more tensions between

public and private spheres are solving. For instance Canan Tolon’s paintings like “Under Pressure” or “Lots for Sale” are studying the negative effects of both real estate market and technology over agriculture and nature in itself. Using such installations and project designs, she considers the damages on ecology as the outcome of hybrid democratization. As argued before, Istanbul Modern is much more concerned with socio-cultural dimension of democratic culture rather than its political ones. However, it should not be ignored that political themes are also relatively welcomed in this museum. The most famous and politically engaged painter Bedri Baykam studies political issues in the exhibitions of both Istanbul Modern and Santral Istanbul. Bedri Baykam is a well-known Turkish artist whose works are based on photopaintings, installations, live art and collages. His paintings are always in every exhibition of private museums. The political messages of Bedri Baykam consist of police beating up, the memories of leftist generations of 1968, the Vietnam War and etc. (Figure 8). Therefore, he gains much more public attention when he gives direct examples of politique réelle (Erdemci 2008, 381). For instance, his photo-paintings like “Police Beats up Silent Protestors” or “A Decree in the Official Gazette” are exposed in Santral Istanbul and experimenting a prodemocratic manifest of the mass public. Compared to other private museums, Santral Istanbul constitutes an “excellent interaction” for democratization process and contemporary art in Turkey. The museum’s major exhibition which was opened in 2007, have been bringing together 500 works by more than 100 artists. Under the concept of “Modern and Beyond”, the curators of the museum collected the contemporary works according to their artistic attributes to democratization process in Turkey. In other words, this private museum organizes several exhibitions especially against nationalist and militarist discourses in Turkey. In this field, the most eminent study belongs to Turkish artist named Erdağ Aksel. Accordingly, he uses installation in order to express his critics against the militarist structure of Turkey (Erdemci 2008: 364). His sculpture quartet named “Retour de Force” presents aggressive elements of militarism (Figure 9). In addition to Erdağ Aksel, Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin produces a striking example of democratic culture, which is against nationalism. Therefore, he studies a sense of common global culture. In “H-fact: Hospitality/Hostiliy”, a group of light-boxes with various techniques, the artist makes a metaphor among hotel signs that he came across in different cities (Erdemci 2008: 410). The metaphor is that the public sphere and everyday life emerges within a sense of global culture: hospitality rather than hostility.

The focus of private museums on political identities questions the ideological construction of these identities. In the exposition of Santral Istanbul, Esra Ersen studies the creation of social structure by state control. In her video installation, she tries to understand the role of school uniforms in Turkey as a part of state control (Erdemci 2008: 434). In the famous educational speech, primary students end up their phrases by saying that “I am Turkish, I am Honest, and I am Hard-working” (Figure 10). Such self-constraint mechanism demonstrates the undemocratic ways of civic education against which the artist produces a sense of political correctness. Since the emergence of neoliberal movements in Turkey, it can be argued that innovative forms of democracy are illustrated throughout contemporary art. Turkish private museums like Santral Istanbul and Istanbul Modern have made the contemporary art as a part of political correctness which is in favor of democratization process in Turkey. On the one hand, they question the social effects of undemocratic culture like Istanbul Modern; on the other hand they criticize the lack of political correctness like Santral Istanbul.

Conclusion

To sum up, this analysis examines the relations of democratization process and contemporary art in Turkey. From the state level to the individual level it can be argued that the evolution of Turkish fine arts can be regarded as a part of political development of Turkey. Therefore, the evolution which is concluded in democratization level, is divided in four categories (westernization, secularization, individualization, democratization) and examined by the exhibitions of two private museums (Museums of Istanbul Modern and Santral Istanbul). The categories describing the evolution of modern and contemporary art have been essential to demonstrate the relationship between democratization process and private efforts concerning museums and biennales. As discussed before, the development of art has been started from state-orientation in the late 19th century, as an example of westernization and secularization targets of the nation-state. Nowadays, the state-oriented art has been passed into individual level. Therefore, one may start talking about freedom of expression through contemporary art, as a result or a reason for democratization process. The Turkish private museums like “Istanbul Modern”, “Sakıp Sabancı Museum”, Santral Istanbul, and “Pera Museum” construct a socio-political framework for public opinion since 2000s. By doing so, the exhibition of modern and contemporary art converges with the

issues of democratic policies. Pluralism, ethnic diversity, ecology, gender, millenarian movements, mass mobility, voting, civil society are the most exposed pro-democratic themes in these private museums. Therefore, artistic works of the exhibitions are questioning the control mechanism of both state and popular culture in everyday life, as an obstacle for political correctness. The contemporary art has discovered democratization process by different approaches and domains. The emergence of new and major museums created dynamism of nongovernmental undertakings. A new type of artist was born during 2000s, within the realm of democratization process. The exhibitions have been organized by museums like Istanbul Modern, Pera Museum and Santral Istanbul in order to propagate the messages of political correctness throughout the methods of contemporary art. When all is said and done, it may be still problematic to assume that either the public participation or the autonomy of the museums itself is efficient enough for guaranteeing the process of democratization, like in the example of “Liberate Tate”(Erden 2010: 97) in which the public is against the sponsorship of museums by an increasing number of huge capitalist companies. Therefore, it might be claimed that in spite of private initiatives, both democratization process and contemporary art continues to be relatively hybrid, compared to the Western examples.

Bibliography

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Annexes

Figure 1: Istanbul Modern (2005)

Figure 2: Santral Istanbul (2008)

Figure 3: Sanayii Nefise (First School and Museum of Fine Arts in Ottoman Period, 1883)

Figure 4: Beethoven in Palace, (Caliph Sultan Abdülmecid, 1910)

Figure 5: The Road to Revolution (Zeki Faik İzer, 1933)

Figure 6: Death of the Poet (Cihat Burak,1967)

Figure 7: Road to Tate Modern (Şener Özmen, 2003)

Figure 8: Atatürk ve İnönü (Bedri Baykam, 1994)

Figure 9: Retour de Force (Erdağ Aksel, 1995)

Figure 10: I am Turkish, I am honest, I am Hard-working (Esra Ersen, 1998)