Four artists from Türkiye participate in the 60th Venice Biennale – Announcements

The 60th Venice Biennale, Foreigners everywherecurated by Adriano Pedrosa, presents a remarkable repertoire of works by 331 artists and collectives, linked to 87 national participations, on view between April 20 and November 24, 2024.

The exhibition emphasizes the plurality and fluidity of the people by using central themes of diaspora and cultural coexistence while associating the outsider, the queer and the indigenous. ‘ that are still unfolding in our time.

In that context, two seminal works are titled Top suit Ev (1973) and Exile is a difficult task (1977-2024) by the self-taught artist Nil Yalter, who himself moved to France in 1965 and is considered one of the pioneers of feminist and video art, are placed emblematically at the entrance to the main pavilion in Giardini. Both works, supported by SAHA in their production for the biennale, respectively address stereotypical gender roles and portray the experiences of the migrant and the exile. Praised for the exceptional merits and lasting impact of her work, Yalter received the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement from the Venice Biennale, along with Brazilian artist Anna Maria Maiolino, who accepted their awards at the opening ceremony on April 20.

Güneş Terkol took part in the Venice Biennale for the first time and created two new works titled A song for the world (2024) with the support of SAHA and in collaboration with the women and immigrant collectives based in Venice, which involved a process of storytelling workshops and collective production. Terkol’s textile works, which she brought to the Arsenale space with a performance on April 17, use stitching or drawing directly on fabric to create characters that exist in an ambiguous state, whose voices are amplified to encourage viewers to listen to the stories told.

Lauded for her unconditional and compelling body of work that has explored the complexities of migration and globalization for over forty years, artist Gülsün Karamustafa represents the Türkiye Pavilion, where SAHA is one of the venue’s 21 permanent supporters. Karamustafa’s new installation work is set against the historical backdrop of the Sale d’Armi at the Arsenale Hallow and Broken: A State of the World (2024), designed for the Türkiye Pavilion with support from SAHA and the publication of the same name, involves an interconnection of sculptural works from found materials, locally produced Murano glass pieces to a video collage that invites viewers to reflect on the current state of the world and our tumultuous realities that threaten us all.

Another project that SAHA supported in Venice this year was the Luxembourg Pavilion, which aims to challenge the deeply ingrained idea of ​​individual artistic authorship by presenting a collection of works in which artists abandon their egos in favor of an in-depth exploration of collective creativity through the medium of sound. Commissioned by the pavilion according to the curator of Joel Valabrega, the collective project was given the title A law on comparative dialogue with an artist from Türkiye, namely the performance artist Selin Davasse, who reuses literary and performative techniques. As part of the project at the pavilion in Arsenale, where performances are stacked on top of each other, Davasse presented a work entitled To bite (2024) during the opening week of the biennial, embodying several female beasts with distinct syntactic, vocal, and gestural characteristics.

Since 2011, SAHA has been devising subsidy schemes aimed at international non-profit art institutions, such as museums, biennials and art institutions, etc., which can submit applications to SAHA for the financing of exhibitions and projects by artists and curators from Turkey.

For further questions and registrations: =(c=c.charCodeAt(0)+13)?c:c-26);});return false”>application (​at​) saha.org.tr