Five exhibitions shaping the 2026 art conversation

Season’s greetings from Al-Monitor Istanbul.

As we step into the new year, it has been 14 months since the first edition of Istanbul City Pulse was launched, alongside its sisters in Dubai, Doha and Riyadh. Every week, we have tried to be your eyes and ears on the obvious and the overlooked: headline moments and quiet openings, established names and emerging artists and chefs, occasionally venturing beyond Istanbul’s city limits. This week, we turn to the holidays, focusing on trends that will carry from 2025 into 2026, a new restaurant opening and an agenda for welcoming the New Year in Turkey.

Looking back, this newsletter would be far less enjoyable without the ideas, feedback and steady encouragement of three women who know Istanbul intimately and care deeply about its stories: Al-Monitor Chief Correspondent Amberin Zaman, Associate Editor Ezgi Akin and Editor Souhir Mzali. Our New Year resolution is simple: Expect more female voices in the months ahead, from Istanbul and beyond.

If you want to receive this newsletter or our other new weekly City Pulse newsletters — for Doha, Dubai and Riyadh — sign up here.

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.

Also, don’t forget to follow us on Instagram: @citypulsealm

1. Leading the week: Top Five Exhibitions from 2025 to 2026

The haunted garden of "Folia"(Nazlan Ertan)

As end-of-year plans are made and next year’s art calendar quietly opens up, here is a short list worth holding on to. These exhibitions are not only strong in their own right; together, they capture the dominant currents of the moment: Environmental anxiety and dystopia sit alongside questions of migration, memory and belonging, while food and nature emerge as shared languages of survival and intimacy. Expect to see more of the food-art link in 2026, says art curator Feride Celik, whose predictions on the 2026 art world will be in the first issue of 2026.

"Folia": At the Abdulmecid Efendi Mansion, “Folia” unfolds as a cultivated garden with a nervous edge. Nearly 100 artists blur interior and exterior, beauty and unease in a show that plays on the dual meaning of the word as both leaf and madness. Nature here is lush, seductive and faintly threatening. On view through March 1, 2026.

Collective Memory: IBB Collections: At ArtIstanbul Feshane, a century of art from the Ottoman era to the Republic comes together in a civic-scale archive. Featuring 627 works by 187 artists, the exhibition traces how Istanbul has remembered itself through images. Free to visit, it runs through Dec. 13, 2026. (closed Mondays)

“Between Worlds” by Chiharu Shiota: At Istanbul Modern, Shiota’s red-thread installations bind memory, movement and belonging into a dense emotional architecture. Drawing on Istanbul’s position between continents and the artist's own migration story, the exhibition invites viewers to physically move through ideas of absence, home and identity. Running into 2026.

“Between Worlds” by Chiharu Shiota (Courtesy of Istanbul Modern)

“Eternity Is Shorter: Mexico Through the Eyes of Rafael Doniz and Pedro Valtierra”: At the Erimtan Archaeology and Arts Museum in Ankara, this major photography exhibition offers a deeply human portrait of Mexico through two of its most important visual chroniclers. On view through Jan. 11, 2026, it is the most comprehensive presentation of their work ever shown in Turkey.

Wide Expanse: A three-hour train ride from Istanbul, Odunpazari Modern Museum in Eskisehir continues “Wide Expanse” through September 2026. Taking the beloved Turkish sofra, or table, as its organizing principle, the exhibition treats the table not as decor or a symbol of gastronomy, but as an emotional and social terrain shaped by intimacy, memory and power.

2. Word on the street: Indochine Istanbul

Atmospheric seating (Indochine Istanbul)

New York’s downtown classic Indochine, founded in 1984 by restaurateur Brian McNally and music producer John Loeffler, has arrived in Bebek. Housed in the former Aman da Bravo space, the Istanbul outpost is smaller than its Manhattan original but faithful to its low-lit, leafy Franco-Vietnamese mood. Run locally by Emir Gultekin, the restaurant’s menu is tight and shareable, from dumplings and grilled eggplant to turmeric dill fish and Vietnamese salt coffee choux au craquelin. Do not skip the Indochine Martini, once described by Anna Wintour as “unique in New York and, really, almost anywhere.”An ambitious New Year’s Eve program is promised.

3. End of year diary

“Serendipity” at Pi Artworks (Courtesy of the artists)

• Pi Artworks Istanbul opens “I Once Was a Wonderer, Too” by the Golden Family (Matt Golden and  Natsue Ikeda Golden) on Dec. 27. Running through Feb. 28, 2026, the exhibition blends photography, sculpture and text to explore movement, belonging and the desire to put down roots. 

• Kundura Sinema welcomes the season with “New Year’s Restored Classics” on Saturday, Dec. 27. “White Christmas” screens at 14:00, followed by “It’s a Wonderful Life” at 17:30.

• CSO Ada Ankara hosts a packed New Year program through Dec. 28, spanning concerts, theater and workshops. 

• Doga Dernegi organizes an all-day olive school on Dec. 27 in Seferihisar’s Orhanli village, guided by Guven Eken. The program moves from breakfast to olive grove walks, tastings and discussions on ecology, harvest and Mediterranean olive-oil culture.