Ottoman journeys through art

Welcome back to AL-MONITOR Istanbul.

Turkey is about to pause. Kurban Bayrami, or Eid al-Adha, falls on May 27-30 this year, and with the weekend before and after folded in, the country effectively stops for nine days. Half of Istanbul will be on the road: to family homes or the coast. The other half will discover, as they do every Bayram, that an emptied Istanbul is one of the finest versions of the city.

For those who stay in, here are our suggestions: Don’t miss the last opportunity this weekend to see Mesher’s “Ars Apodemica.” Casa Botter on Istiklal offers a rare chance to spend time with Ihsan Cemal Karaburcak’s purples. For those already packed, the 7th Mardin Biennial, “SKYground,” has just opened across the old city’s honey-colored limestone and wide Mesopotamian horizon.

Wherever this finds you: Iyi bayramlar.

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Thanks for reading,

Nazlan (@NazlanEr on X)

P.S. Have tips on Istanbul’s culture scene? Send them my way at nertan@al-monitor.com.

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1. Leading the week: The art of going somewhere

“Ars Apodemica” at Mesher (Courtesy of Mesher)

There is a Latin term, “ars apodemica,” the art of travel, that Renaissance scholars used to describe the proper conduct of a journey: what to observe, how to record it, what to bring back. Mesher’s exhibition borrows the term and, thankfully, gives it a local touch.

Curated by Merve Uca, “Ars Apodemica” brings together more than 300 works spanning the late 15th century to the early 20th, all orbiting journeys to and through Ottoman territories. The organizing principle is not chronology but motivation: curiosity, faith, diplomacy, trade and war.

The works — from paintings to ceramics, rugs and kaftans — are remarkable, with the private collection of enigmatic art collector Omer Koc taking center stage. Some pieces are already familiar to art lovers: Durer’s “Rhinoceros,” displayed at Arter’s haunting “Suppose You Are Not,” and the leather letter wallets from the “For My Friend” exhibition at Sadberk Hanim Museum reappear here in good company: Jacopo Ligozzi, Louis-Francois Cassas, Istanbul panoramas, Portolan maps and travelogues that treat observation as a discipline, or a professional deformation.

The diplomatic paintings deserve particular attention and will feel familiar to anyone who frequents the nearby Pera Museum, also part of the Koc cultural patronage network that has become one of Istanbul’s most significant institutional forces. Four canvases by artists in the entourage of Habsburg envoy Hans Ludwig von Kuefstein document Ottoman diplomatic protocol with the attentiveness of embedded correspondents; four more show the Ottoman side of the same encounter. It is the bilateral gaze that Orientalism rarely managed.

And then there is the Turquerie thread: the cultural blowback from all this diplomatic traffic, as Turkish fashion, motifs and aesthetics spread through European interiors and wardrobes with an enthusiasm that Instagram would now call “going viral.” Not all is splendor, peace and pleasure — just take a look at the “Turk’s Head” in one of the stairways.

“Turk’s Head,” an early 20th century ceramic (Photo Nazlan Ertan)

Location: Mesrutiyet Cad. No:67, Tepebasi, Beyoglu.

Date: May 24 (Hurry!)

2. Word on the street: Gnocchi social

A touch of Rome and hamburgers (Gnocchi Facebook)

Tucked into Selin Sokak, just off the relentless retail procession of Bagdat Caddesi, Gnocchi is a cheerful paradox. The decor is full-throttle Italian kitsch: real and faux marble, glittering chandeliers, Greco-Roman busts and vast laminated vedute of the Eternal City. You sit beneath all of this and order a smash burger, which is, improbably, the right call. The logic becomes clear once you learn that Gnocchi is the Italian alter ego of Vintage Burger next door, the same team applying the same precision to a different passport.

The namesake gnocchi and the pizzas are perfectly respectable. Come summer, the large garden will do most of the work.

Location: Selin Sokak No:4/2, Caddebostan, Kadikoy

3. Istanbul diary

Karaburcak’s purple women at Casa Botter (Photo courtesy of IBB Kultur)

At Casa Botter, Istanbul’s first art nouveau building on Istiklal Caddesi, sensitively restored by IBB Miras, “A Painter of Color: Ihsan Cemal Karaburcak” brings together works entirely from the Karaburcak family collection. A self-taught painter who resisted every movement and school, Karaburcak is best known for his use of purple. Until Aug. 30.

Shiva Zahed Gallery opens Ahmad Rafi’s “Against Transparency,” curated by Shiva Zahed. The Tehran-born, Frankfurt-based painter works with veils, curtains and half-visible figures to argue that opacity is a right. Until July 5.

Pi Artworks Istanbul presents Erdal Duman’s first solo with the gallery, “If You’ve Come, Throw a Stone at the Window.” Duman works with soil, flag fittings and ammunition forms. The show is, among other things, a call to a subject he fears is disappearing: the right to say no to power-mongers and state violence. Until June 20.