Who's in town?
Martina Becker
The Foundation of the Art-Craft Department in Ankara, 1909-1932
Salt Galata
May 26, 2017 19.00
Ankara Gazi Teacher Institute
Courtesy Nuri Aksel
Courtesy Nuri Aksel
SALT Galata, Workshop II-III
In this “Who’s in town?” talk, art historian Martina Becker will discuss the development of the curriculum and the architectural setting of the Art-Craft Department at the Gazi Education Institute in Ankara. According to Becker, although the school was opened in 1932, it was built upon the principles that the educationalists Sati’ al-Husri (1880-1969) and İsmail Hakkı Baltacıoğlu (1887-1978) had already introduced into art education at the Teachers’ Training College [Darülmuallimin] in Istanbul in 1909.
Becker suggests that the Art-Craft Department recorded a change of priorities from handicraft to visual arts, and reflected also the departure from applied arts associated with an Ottoman and Islamic heritage towards a formal repertoire defined as modern and secular. Central throughout, however, remained the creative process itself as the aesthetic response to modernization and its effects on life and work.
The talk will be held in English.
Martina Becker is visiting assistant professor in the History of Art Department at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her research focuses on art, architecture, and urbanism in the late Ottoman Empire and early Turkish Republic drawing on visual studies and new materialism.
Organized in collaboration with SALT and Goethe-Institut Istanbul, this talk is based on the findings of Becker’s research funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program.
In this “Who’s in town?” talk, art historian Martina Becker will discuss the development of the curriculum and the architectural setting of the Art-Craft Department at the Gazi Education Institute in Ankara. According to Becker, although the school was opened in 1932, it was built upon the principles that the educationalists Sati’ al-Husri (1880-1969) and İsmail Hakkı Baltacıoğlu (1887-1978) had already introduced into art education at the Teachers’ Training College [Darülmuallimin] in Istanbul in 1909.
Becker suggests that the Art-Craft Department recorded a change of priorities from handicraft to visual arts, and reflected also the departure from applied arts associated with an Ottoman and Islamic heritage towards a formal repertoire defined as modern and secular. Central throughout, however, remained the creative process itself as the aesthetic response to modernization and its effects on life and work.
The talk will be held in English.
Martina Becker is visiting assistant professor in the History of Art Department at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her research focuses on art, architecture, and urbanism in the late Ottoman Empire and early Turkish Republic drawing on visual studies and new materialism.
Organized in collaboration with SALT and Goethe-Institut Istanbul, this talk is based on the findings of Becker’s research funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program.
