It has been an interesting Autumn in Istanbul so far for those interested in modern art. The 11th International Istanbul Biennal has just finished as did a counter exhibition called “My Name is Casper” (see this Hurriyet article) organised by the Karşı Sanat Gallery.

In addition to these spaces, showcasing the new generation of Turkish and international artists, two established names in 20th century art history were also celebrated. A big exhibition on Joseph Beuys and His Students ran in the Sakip Sabanci Museum and still on show is a major retrospective of Yüksel Arslan in Santralistanbul.

These expositions cover a wider range of topics and techniques but they have one thing in common in that they all, to varying degrees, pose the question of what relation art has, or should have, towards the political. The Biennal took its motto, What Keeps Mankind Alive, from the song Denn wovon lebt der Mensch? that was part of Bertold Brecht’s Dreigroschenoper and set out, at least on paper, to question the role of the Left in contemporary society. My Name is Casper, while organised in opposition to the Biennal, was similarly political in its aims. Questions about the role of art in society were also a constant in the life and work of Beuys while Arslan had a Marxist phase in which he produced two series of paintings dealing with Das Kapital.

It is thus clear that the current generation of artists, as represented in the Biennal and Casper, sees politics as an important subject for modern art. And art should not merely reflect politics but also be engaged and thus itself political, if the two can be separated at all. The question is of course how the message affects the medium: how do you engage with politics without turning art into a flat form of political propaganda? In one of the rooms of the Beuys exhibition a quote was printed that is illuminating: ”Art is not there to provide knowledge in direct ways. It produces deepened perceptions of experience. If the aim was to be simply understood, we would have no need for art.”

If this is the yardstick against which to measure the aforementioned exhibitions then modern art has a problem. Both in the Biennal and My Name is Casper the political descends into sloganism which leaves very little to the imagination and makes one wonder if this is all that modern artists have to comment on politics in the 3rd millenium. By contrast Arslan managed to create some works that seem simplistic on the surface but nonetheless force the viewer to engage with them; they provoke and challenge, in other words, aim not just to be “simply understood”.

One thing is clear though: whether succesful or not in their explorations of politics, the fact of having these expositions taking place at almost the same time in Istanbul provided a unique and intriguing window on the perennial question of the function of art in our society.

See also this AFP news item about the Biennal: