Against the backdrop of the Syrian refugee crisis and intensified clashes between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and the Turkish government, the 14th Istanbul Biennial, Saltwater: a Theory of Thought Forms, opened in September (until 1 November).
Curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev has chosen many works that address conflict, political uprising and ethnic cleansing but works alluding to the refugee crisis, which has been ongoing since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, were conspicuously absent. “Syrian refugees [were] literally within eyeshot of the biennial venues, yet [there was] no reference to that disaster,” said one curator who preferred to remain anonymous.
Perhaps the most compelling political message is the inclusion of 13 artists who are of Armenian descent or have made works relating to the country’s history and the genocide of 1915 to 1917, an atrocity not recognised by the Turkish state. It is “timely” to speak about it, Christov-Bakargiev told the media at the biennial’s opening.
There have been some adverse responses, however. The Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz, who is showing The Flesh Is Yours, The Bones Are Ours (2015), an installation of plaster friezes moulded by Armenians and excavated bones, says his work was vandalised on the opening day.
The date “1915” and the word “Armenian” have been smudged from pencil captions relating to parts of his work. Against his first impulse to repair it, Rakowitz decided to leave the rubbed out marks “as part of the work”.
Summing up the biennial, Rakowitz said: “It’s not just a critique, it’s a national project of healing.”
