Contemporary Istanbul 2024 Brings International Flair to the Local Turkish Art Scene

Those who have attended more than a few art fairs will know about VIP days—the invite-only opening where a select audience are able to peruse the booths before the fair’s public hours.

But things were taken one step further at Contemporary Istanbul yesterday with its “At First Sight” day, which is kept so far under wraps that it’s not even listed on its website (the fair’s official VIP day took place on Wednesday). As art handlers and assorted venue staff milled about in the late morning on Tuesday, it was unclear to more than a few visitors if they’d gotten the wrong date. But by the afternoon, the launch turned out to be less of a well-kept secret and more akin to the glass-clinking, sharp-suited fare of a typical VIP hour.

“Everyone sees that there is a positive energy at Contemporary Istanbul,” noted Ali Güreli, the fair’s indefatigable founder and chairman. And as the fair got busily underway at the idyllic Tersane Istanbul—a historic former Ottoman dock where views of the city’s Golden Horn abound—it was clear Güreli had a point. As the largest and longest-running fair in Istanbul, this event is a showcase of the city’s status as what Güreli calls the “cultural translator” between East and West, with an art scene that is as energetic as it is dynamic.

The Turkish art scene in the spotlight

This year’s edition of the fair—its 19th—features 50 galleries from 14 countries. While this total is down from the 67 exhibitors at the 2023 edition, it marks the first time that the fair has an even split of galleries from Turkey and abroad. Still, the Turkish art scene is the beating heart of the fair, with many pointing to the event’s importance to the domestic cultural calendar.

“It’s so important to us because we started as a gallery to support contemporary young artists in Turkey,” said Irem Imre of local gallery Anna Laudel. “We started with that aim and now we have many young and old artists, but we always think it’s so important to represent Turkish artists in Istanbul.”

Like almost all of the galleries at the fair, Anna Laudel is presenting a group presentation of its artists, from playful word art textiles by Ramazan Can to austere paintings by established artist Hanefi Yeter.

A similar sentiment was noted by Jade Turanli, founder of London and Istanbul’s Pi Artworks and a longtime exhibitor at the fair. “Turkey is a place where things always change,” she told Artsy. “Contemporary Istanbul has maintained that over the years: No matter what has happened to Turkey, we have always pushed and maintained integrity.” Highlights at the gallery’s booth include sun-soaked depictions of figures dozing in fields and cliffside walks by ultra-contemporary artist Özer Toraman.

A broad range of works—and prices

Turkish artists, while the most prominent, are contextualized by a broader, international vision that many galleries are bringing to the fair.

“There continues to be a significant interest in international artists, which our roster mainly comprises of,” said Alexander Pirinoli, director of sales at London’s HOFA Gallery (House of Fine Art). The gallery is presenting works including gestural abstract paintings by Sougwen Chung, who uses AI to dictate the brushstrokes on the canvas.

At New York and Istanbul’s C24 Gallery, meanwhile, works by Turkish artists Fırat Neziroğlu and İrfan Önürmen are presented with three names that have never before been exhibited in the country: Gabriel Barcia-Colombo, Brendan Lee Satish Tang, and Patricia Waller. The works of Waller in particular—darkly whimsical textile pieces featuring an elephant hoovering a carpet and an octopus cutting off its own arm—were attracting ample attention from guests.

For the C24 Gallery director and curator David C. Terry, the choice of presentation reflects an appetite for discovery among fairgoers. “The collector base is familiar with the gallery, they’re familiar with the work that we bring, but they also know that we’re going to bring some exciting, different work,” he said.

This variety is also reflected in the price points of works at the fair. While the majority of pieces lean towards the four- to five-figure ranges, six-figure works are not a total rarity.

At Stockholm’s GSA Gallery, signature twisting sculptures by Tony Cragg lean towards the pricier end of the fair at €200,000 ($216,008) and are placed in dialogue with lesser-known names such as Martin Wickström, whose charming depictions of housefronts will come as a discovery to many. For founder Steffan Andersson, the fair’s clientele is an ideal site to present this mix. “We have participated in art fairs all over the world, and nowhere else in the world are people so interested and friendly, as in Istanbul,” he said.

Perhaps the priciest works at the fair can be found at local stalwart Sevil Dolmacı Gallery, where paintings by David Salle and works by Barry X Ball are featured. A gleaming silver sculpture by the latter artist, Purity (2024), is priced at $525,000. “Contemporary Istanbul is very important as an international and sustainable art fair in Turkey,” said founder Sevil Dolmacı, who confirmed to Artsy that the work was attracting “great interest.”

Ambitious aims

The fair might be the most established in Turkey, but there is no sign of slowing ambition. Güreli pointed to the organization’s “union of strengths” between public and private institutions, NGOs, and local government as a source of future growth.

One such way that the fair is moving forward this year is with a new guest country program that spotlights Spain and Spanish-speaking countries and Latin American exhibitors. Buenos Aires’s W-Galería, which is hosting one of the fair’s few solo booths, presents ceramic torsos and smattered glazed ceramic wall sculptures by Argentine artist Nicolás Guagnini.

This is accompanied by a special exhibition, “Born in the Seventies.” Curated by former Museo Reina Sofía director Juan Manuel Bonet and supported by Spain’s ambassador to Turkey, Cristina Latorre Sancho, the show highlights Spanish artists born in the 1970s. María Beltrán’s Doble Imaginado (2018), depicting a group of women at a bathroom sink in different forms of repose, and Miguel Fructuoso’s smoothly geometric abstract painting Bodegon (2024) are among the standouts here.