Eavesdropping in Istanbul Presentation at Ashkal Alwan

As part of the Home Works 6 Platform, Ashkal Alwan is hosting a presentation by Sarah-Neel Smith called “Eavesdropping in Istanbul”.

Sarah-Neel Smith’s presentation profiles five individuals involved in the scandal surrounding a 1954 painting contest in Istanbul. The figures introduced—such as the artist Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu, critic Bülent Ecevit, and art historian Nurullah Berk—subsequently reappear as the protagonists of a semi-fictionalized account of the event by Khouri, Maamoun, and Winchester.

Smith treats their public statements and private assertions about the contest’s controversial outcome like an overheard conversation, which opens up onto larger debates that preoccupied members of the Turkish art world in the 1950s.