Art perseveres in Istanbul despite coronavirus
The city’s traditional fall art season is underway as curators take new approaches to exhibit work safely and sustainably during the coronavirus pandemic, despite confusing government restrictions about what would be allowed to go ahead.
Istanbul’s art community has rolled up its sleeves this fall to make sure the shows go on, even as government restrictions to curb the coronavirus outbreak and worries about public health threatened to shelve the traditional art season.
Curators have moved exhibitions outdoors and online, collaborating with institutions across borders and focusing on local artists and audiences, making their exhibitions safer and more sustainable in the process.
Not least among the challenges have been the government’s shifting rules as it grapples with a second peak in the outbreak, which has killed more than 11,200 people in Turkey. The Interior Ministry issued a series of decrees in September and October that barred public gatherings, stoking uncertainty about whether cultural events could proceed.
Organizers of the fifth edition of the Design Biennial, the flagship event on the fall art calendar this year, weighed rescheduling but instead reconfigured the show, reducing the scale and expanding it over several months.
