Honor Awards given
Honor Awards of the Istanbul Art Fair are given every year to commemorate outstanding contributions to various branches of plastic arts. This year, the Artist of Honor Award will be given to sculptor Ali Teoman Germaner (a.k.a. “Aloş”), Critic of Honor Award to Professor Ayla Ödekan, Collector of Honor Award to İpek and Ahmet Merey, and the Benefactor of Art Award to Baksı Museum.
An Artist of Honor Sculpture and Pattern Exhibition in homage to Ali Teoman Germaner will be held during the fair. In addition, visitors will have the opportunity to view a selection of portraits from the İpek and Ahmet Merey collection.
Theme: The Invisible Istanbul
This year’s theme of “Invisible Istanbul” is a call for artists to refocus on the city, cast another look on it and find out what had remained hidden from their eyes until now, while visitors are invited to see to discover the unseen among the visible, the millennia-old secrets of the city. Themed exhibitions will be available throughout the fair.
Independent groups and art initiatives from Holland visit Istanbul for the first time
Sandberg Instituut (Amsterdam)/Art Pie and Kunstvlaai/Art Fair
The Dutch-based contemporary art and design graduate program Sandberg Institut and Amsterdam’s important art event Kunstvlaai/Art Fair will have a collective stand at the Art Fair. Among the 19 Dutch initiatives and independent groups to take part in the fair are the Basement Art Project, a network of modern artists; the artist collective Palatti; IRFAK; the M4 art platform; Baracca, Locatiez, Noordkaap, KuS/Signe, the digital artist collective Planet Art, Satellietgroep, P/AKT, Service Garage, the digital art magazine Ground Magazine, the alternative art training institution European Exchange Academy, the Hague-based project initiative 1646, the working space for visual artists and curators HUP, the Cacaofabriek, which has transformed a 19th-century cocoa factory into a space for art, and the ZET Foundation established in 1994 by artists focusing on drawings.
The leading video-art company Lowave will attend the Istanbul Art Fair
Lowave is an independent film label founded in 2002 to promote experimental film and contemporary video art and make them accessible beyond the film festival and gallery circuit. Alongside historic figures such as Maurice Lemaître (French Lettrist painter and filmmaker), Takahiko Iimura (Japanese video artist), and Helga Fanderl (German super-8mm filmmaker), Lowave has put forward some of the most important young artists from around the world, including China, the USA, Iraq, Finland, Lebanon, Morocco and Palestine. Lowave prepares individual, monographic titles for international film festivals including the Oberhausen International Short Film Festivali, Norwich Aurora Festival, Clermont-Ferrand Vidéoformes Festival, Marseille International Video Art and Multimedia Festival (Les Instants Vidéo) and Tokyo Film Festival.
Lowave will be present at the Istanbul Art Fair with “Resistance(s)” and artists Triny Prada and İsmail Bahri.
Independent Groups and Art Initiatives from Turkey
Independent groups and art initiatives continue to comprise a vital part of the Istanbul Art Fair, bringing a multitude of colors with exhibitions and works in various disciplines of modern art.
This year, the Koridoor Modern Arts Program joins the 20th Art Fair with 100 artists from 20 countries under the general heading of “Meeting Point: Istanbul” with Denizhan Özer as curator and Elisabeth Del Prete as project assistant. The exhibition contains works in various disciplines like 2D and 3D painting, sculpture, photography, installation, printing, video art, performance and dance in addition to digital screenings, training projects and interviews.
Another important independent art initiative is the 216 Artists. Artists who mostly live and work on the Anatolian side of Istanbul have chosen the telephone area code of the district –216– as the code of working and thinking in the Anatolian side, and believe that art should be a part of daily life as much as it appears in museums, galleries and workshops. This year’s exhibition be titled “MANIC ATTACK” and is a reflection on the psyches of the city and its dwellers.
Art in Discussion
Many interviews and panel discussions will be hosted at the 20th Istanbul Art Fair with the cooperation of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA-Turkey) and TÜYAP, featuring artists, academics, critics, scholars and institution representatives. Themes to be discussed include “The City and Art”, “The Influence of Critics, Curators and Fairs on Art”, “Museums, Museum Administration and Art” and “Contemporary Art in Turkey”.
Visiting hours of the 20th Istanbul Art Fair-ARTIST 2010 will be 11 am-8 pm between the 30th of October and 6th of November, and 11 am-7 pm on the 7th of November. The Art Fair will be held concurrently with the 29th Istanbul Book Fair. Admission is free for students, teachers and retirees.