The Berksoy legacy on stage and canvas

Welcome back to Al-Monitor Istanbul.

This week, we return to one of Turkey’s most quietly compelling artistic families, led by Semiha Berksoy and brought into focus by “Aria of All Colors,” the expansive exhibition currently on view at Istanbul Modern. Resilience seems to be the right theme as we commemorate the victims of the Feb. 6, 2023 earthquake that has devastated Turkey’s eastern provinces. We also check in on Istanbul’s design calendar, follow letters as they turn into art at Casa Botter and pause to deliver our verdict on an old restaurant.

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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: Three women and an aria of colors 

A detail from Zeliha Berksoy’s “Feast at the  Prison” (Photo courtesy of Istanbul Modern)

Creative families are hardly rare in Turkey, yet few unfold with the clarity and persistence of the Berksoy female line. It begins with Fatma Saime Hanim, an Ottoman female artist whose life and work remain lightly documented, though it is known that she contributed to the early development of the plastic arts in Turkey and helped open pathways for subsequent female artists such as Hale Asaf.

Her daughter, Semiha Berksoy (1910-2004), carried that legacy forward with uncommon force. Trained at the Istanbul Municipal Conservatory, she became the first Turkish soprano to appear on a major European opera stage, performing Ariadne in “Ariadne auf Naxos” at the Berlin State Opera. Back in Turkey, she gave voice to the republic’s cultural ambitions through landmark works such as “Ozsoy,” composed by Ahmet Adnan Saygun in 1934 at the request of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk as the first Turkish opera. But opera never contained her.

Alongside the stage, Berksoy painted relentlessly, producing self-portraits, portraits of loved ones, opera-inspired scenes and large-scale works that turned memory, desire and performance into image. She wrote short fiction, acted in Turkey’s first sound film and treated her own life as material. Again and again, she returned to her mother’s image in paint, acknowledging a lineage that was both artistic and resilient.

The third act belongs to Zeliha Berksoy, born in 1948. A theater and performance artist, she worked extensively with Bertolt Brecht’s plays, bringing political rigor and distanced acting styles to Turkish stages. Over time, she also became the most attentive reader of her mother’s work, preserving the archive and shaping how that legacy is understood.

That continuity gives “Aria of All Colors” its quiet authority. Presented at Istanbul Modern, the exhibition brings together more than 200 works across painting, performance, cinema, opera and writing. Rather than following a strict chronology, the curatorial team organizes the material thematically, foregrounding Berksoy’s chromatic intensity and her lifelong attachment to the stage. First conceived at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, the exhibition was expanded and reconfigured for Istanbul with additional archival material and a renewed curatorial frame. Rather than surveying a career from a distance, it traces the conditions that allowed an artistic life to endure — shaped and sustained across three generations of women.

📍Where: Istanbul Modern, KilicAli Pasa Mahallesi, Tophane Iskele Caddesi

🗓️ When: until Sept. 6

Find more information here.

2. Word on the street: Mahkeme

Salted bonito and potato salad (Photo courtesy of Mahkeme)

Set in a historic building, Mahkeme wears its courthouse past lightly, pairing high ceilings and stone walls with an easy, neighborhood warmth. The menu draws thoughtfully on Turkish and Mediterranean traditions, ranging from pastirmali hummus and grilled octopus to marinated sea bass, fish meatballs, kofte and lentil soup. It is the kind of place that rewards a slow meal, where conversation stretches as comfortably as the table.

📍Where: Persembe Pazari Cad. Mahkeme Sokak No:2/A  Karakoy

Find more information here.

3. Istanbul diary

Feleksan Onar’s cacti at Fy-shan Glass Studio (Photo courtesy of the artist)

• Fy-shan Glass Studio × Rezzan Benardete Interiors come together at the Akaretler Design & Antique Show with a joint presentation that places glass objects, lighting and furniture within a carefully composed interior setting. On view until Feb. 15.

• Casa Botter presents “With Love, Bedri Rahmi Eyuboglu,” an exhibition built around the artist’s correspondence envelopes, turning private traces into visual documents of Turkey’s cultural history. Featuring letters exchanged with figures such as Nazim Hikmet and Fikret Mualla, the show offers a quiet, poetic entry into Eyuboglu’s personal and artistic world, on view through March 29.

• On the Anatolian side, Decollage Art Space’s “FOCUS 2025: Reflection” brings together 33 artists working across a range of materials and visual languages to explore reflection as both a formal and social condition. Running through March 1, the exhibition frames visibility, transformation and self-perception as shared questions rather than fixed images.