İstanbul Eind­hoven
SALTVanAbbe
Post '89

SALT Beyoğlu and SALT Galata

İstanbul Eindhoven-SALTVanAbbe, a collaborated project of SALT and Van Abbemuseum, will evolve over the course of three exhibitions presented across both SALT venues throughout 2012. The first exhibition İstanbul Eindhoven-SALTVanAbbe: Post ’89 opens on January 27 and presents art works loaned from the Van Abbemuseum collection that were produced after the year 1989.

In collaboration with the team at Van Abbemuseum, SALT has selected over forty individual works by fifteen international artists who have either never shown in İstanbul or have been rarely exhibited despite their notoriety. In addition to believing that these particular works are of inspirational importance and hence should be seen first-hand, the selection also revolves around several key themes explored within artistic practices of this period. These include ‘portraiture’ with photographs by Rineke Dijkstra and an installation of paintings titled Models by Marlene Dumas, ‘literature and text’ for which Allen Ruppersberg’s homage to Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” takes center stage, ‘film’ as referenced throughout the practices and works of Douglas Gordon and Rodney Graham among others, and ‘time and space’ conceptually explored most intimately by Stanley Brouwn. Works by local artists that relate to these loose thematic sections are positioned to encourage visual and conceptual conversations between similar ideas and approaches. These include paintings by Leyla Gediz that afford an alternative appreciation for portraiture, Cevdet Erek’s studies of rhythm and measure, Özlem Günyol & Mustafa Kunt’s plays on translation and geographical positioning and İnci Eviner’s quirky film-set-like panoramas that read along one horizon line.

An important moment in the exhibition is the third floor space given over to the provocative and influential artist Mike Kelley and an adapted installation of his multi-media composition Categorical Imperative and Morgue. The work includes a commentary by Kelley in the form of an audio tour giving visitors the opportunity to immerse themselves in one of his complex installations. To give further context to his practice his collaborative work Heidi, made with Paul McCarthy, will be on view in the same space and a number of Kelley’s other video works will be shown throughout the exhibition period in the Walk-in Cinema.

The exhibition extends to SALT Galata with the inclusion of three sculptural interventions that inhabit the building site-specifically, two by the late Juan Muñoz that can be found in the entrance stairwell and a third by İnci Eviner located on the first floor.

The artists in the first exhibition of the series are Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Abdellatif Benfaidoul, Stanley Brouwn, Rineke Dijkstra, Marlene Dumas, Cevdet Erek, İnci Eviner, Leyla Gediz, Douglas Gordon, Rodney Graham, Özlem Günyol & Mustafa Kunt, Pierre Huyghe, Mike Kelley, Atelier van Lieshout, Paul McCarthy, Juan Muñoz, Gabriel Orozco, Allen Ruppersberg, Wilhem Sasnal, Jan Vercruysse.

This first exhibition will be followed by İstanbul Eindhoven-SALTVanAbbe: ’68-’89 (April 20 – August 19, 2012; SALT Beyoğlu) and İstanbul Eindhoven-SALTVanAbbe: Modern Times (September 14 – December 31, 2012; SALT Galata). Following this exhibition process, the local positions presented in the series İstanbul Eindhoven-SALTVanAbbe will be considered for acquisition by the Van Abbemuseum.


Please note that the first floor installation at SALT Beyoğlu of Eija-Liisa Ahtila’s work If 6 was 9 will close on March 4, 2012, one month earlier than the rest of SALTVanAbbe: Post ‘89 exhibition, which runs until April 6, 2012.


NLTR 400: 400 years of diplomatic relations between the Netherlands and Turkey



İstanbul Eindhoven-SALTVanAbbe is kindly supported by
the Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.



Exhibition-related public programs are kindly supported by
The Mondriaan Fund.

Installation Views