Istanbul Modern Museum of Art

İstanbul Modern is hosting “Site”, the most comprehensive exhibition ever undertaken in Turkey by Sarkis, one of today’s leading names in contemporary art. The exhibition is being mounted with the contributions of the Promotion Fund of the Prime Ministry. It is being sponsored by the museum’s main sponsor, Garanti Bank. In addition to being the first time that İstanbul Modern has ever hosted an exhibition by a living contemporary artist, “Site” also gives Sarkis an opportunity to reinterpret all of the different periods of his 50-year career.

Curated by İstanbul Modern’s Chief Curator Levent Çalıkoğlu, “Site” will open on 11 September 2009 and run until 10 January 2010. The exhibition is designed to link all of the spaces of the museum to one another. In “Site”, Sarkis creates a city replete with the evidence of his past in the form of photographs taken from more than a hundred of his previous exhibitions, works that he has invited from European museum collections, and objects that he has been accumulating over the years in his studios.

“Site” gives viewers a chance to become closely familiar with Sarkis’s art and its all-embracing multidisciplinarity. During the “Site” exhibition, not just İstanbul Modern’s Temporary Exhibition Hall but also its Permanent Exhibition Hall, Photography Gallery, and Cinema will be serving as venues for a variety of activities and programs: photographs and films shot by the artist will be shown in the museum’s Photography Gallery; the Education and Social Projects Department will be running a “Watercolor in Water Workshop”; Sarkis will be conducting a “School” for eight young artists; piano concerts will be held in the central plaza of “Site”; Sarkis will meet with viewers in a series of talk; NTV has prepared a comprehensive documentary about Sarkis to mark the exhibition.
 

Sarkis has covered the walls of İstanbul Modern with posters consisting of images that he has captured from more than a hundred of his exhibitions. The artist invites the viewer into a magical world that he has fitted out with continuously changing and completely reperformed installations and with works, garments, sculptures, objects, and works in stained glass and neon that he has gathered and kept alive over the years. “Site” comes to life through its light, sounds, and music while its sky breathes with its photographs. Figures step down from the images on the walls and stroll the streets of Sarkis’s city like actors.
 

İstanbul Museum of Modern Art will be completely closed for repairs and other work on December 9th, 11th, 12th, and 13th. The Ground Floor will be open on the 10th but the Upper Floor will be closed that day. Museum hours:
Tuesday – Sunday: 10.00 a.m - 6.00 pm
Thursday: 10.00 p.m - 8.00 p.m
Monday: Closed
Admission: adults 7 TL
The museum is closed on January 1 and on the first day of religious holidays.

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APD 28.11.12