Exhibitions

ELLEN KOOI

Yapı Kredi bomontiada, Fourth Floor
8-18 October
Open Everyday 10 a.m – 8 p.m

It would not be wrong to seek traces of her ‘playful’ approach towards photography in Ellen Kooi’s (b.1962) former career as a theatre and performance photographer. Kooi spends most of her time working with models, finding their best poses and expressions and developing choreographies. Acting is a major source of inspiration for her stories.

Kooi was trained at the Academie Minerva in Groningen, before completing a doctorate at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, in Amsterdam. She appeared in exhibitions throughout the ’90s, but her breakthrough came in the 2000s, with solo and group exhibitions which travelled the world. La Casa Encendida in Madrid, Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire in Paris, PPOW Gallery in New York and Borusan Contemporary in Istanbul are just a few spots where the photographer’s work has been exhibited.

Ellen Kooi, De Houtwielen – ballonnen, from the Icons series, 1997

MICHAL CHELBIN

Yapı Kredi bomontiada, Fourth Floor
8-18 October
Open Everyday 10 a.m – 8 p.m

With settings ranging from Russian prisons to Ukrainian military boarding schools and circuses – as well as the subjects within – Michal Chelbin treats childhood as a playground that is lived and left behind, a transition full of contradictions. Her work tries to ‘exist in the space between the strange and the ordinary’, in her own words. Chelbin’s work has been widely shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions worldwide and can be found in many private and public collections, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, LACMA and the Getty Center in LA, the Sir Elton John Photography Collection, SFMOMA and more.

She is a regular contributor to publications like The New York Times Magazine, GQ, The Guardian, Le Monde and the author of three critically acclaimed monographs, published by Aperture and Twin Palms. Her next monograph will be published in Autumn 2020.

Michal Chelbin, Alvaro, Christian and Francisco, Spain 2018

CLEMENS ASCHER

Yapı Kredi bomontiada, Fourth Floor
8-18 October
Open Everyday 10 a.m – 8 p.m

Austrian photographer Clemens Ascher is a storyteller, one whose allure is hard to resist within the world of contemporary photography. He explores themes such as social control, alienation from nature, and other contemporary realities through his seductive, surreal photography.

For the series, A Modernist Lunchbreak, Ascher drew inspiration from workers in office buildings. He takes ‘familiar’ figures and carefully places them inside the universe that he has created. In Hitchhiking USA, the artist focused on life in America, as well as on dreams and freedoms. On Pleasure Grounds serves as a reflection of a fictional amusement arcade, through Ascher’s eyes.

Creating abstract spatial compositions full of surreal figures, Ascher explores the relationship between the modernist vision of the past and contemporary sociological phenomena. Throughout his works, Ascher explores the subliminal effect of colours and repetitive expression.

Clemens Ascher, A Mondernist Lunchbreak #3

OUKA LEELE

Yapı Kredi bomontiada, Fourth Floor
8-18 October
Open Everyday 10 a.m – 8 p.m

Ouka Leele (born B.rbara Allende Gil de Biedma, 1957) is one of the most important representatives of the Spanish countercultural movement, La Movida. She is best known for her exuberant creations that embrace the living moment. Redolent of early 20th century Surrealism, her monochrome photographs do not seek to replicate reality, but instead serve as sketches – the basis for her vibrant paintings.

Since her breakthrough 1978 series, La Peluqueria, Ouka Leele’s work has always been received enthusiastically. This inspired her collaboration with J.W. Anderson where she created a capsule wardrobe for Loewe’s 2017 Spring/ Summer collection. Her works have been exhibited at the 1987 S.o Paulo Biennale, the 2010 Shanghai Biennale and Fondation Cartier, amongst others. Over the course of her career she has inspired artists such as Lubaina Himid, Yue Minjun and Rowan Papier.

Ouka Leele, El Beso – The Kiss, 1980

JULIA HETTA

Yapı Kredi bomontiada, Fourth Floor
8-18 October
Open Everyday 10 a.m – 8 p.m

Julia Hetta’s long and passionate relationship with photography dates back to her childhood in Uppsala, Sweden, where her family had a darkroom at home. She is a graduate of the renowned Gerrit Rietveld Art Academy in Amsterdam and worked for several years in a photography archive in Stockholm, educating herself in a range of genres from fine art to photojournalism. Her photographs provide a glimpse into an alternative world, rich with the romance and quietude associated with classical painting. Working almost exclusively with natural light and long exposure times, Hetta imbues her subjects with a sense of serenity and power.

Her use of light, colour and texture transforms her fashion photographs into compositions of timeless enchantment. Hetta’s editorial clients include Vogue Italia, Vanity Fair, AnOther and The New Yorker. Her commercial clients include Gucci, Christian Dior, Chaumet, Alexander McQueen and Jil Sander. Her work has been featured in numerous exhibitions internationally, including Out of Context at Grundemark Nilsson Gallery, The Female Gaze, Photo Vogue Festival at Base Milano (2016), and Don’t Stop Now: Fashion Photography Next at Foam (2014).

Julia Hetta, Japan 02, 2018

KENDINE HAS EXHIBITION

Yapı Kredi bomontiada, Fourth Floor
8-18 October
Open Everyday 10 a.m – 8 p.m

Kendine Has Exhibition features unforgettable performance stills from the various concerts Artemis Günebakanlı has attended over the years, candid moments of local artists from the lens of Leo Xandre as well as Emre Doğru’s portraits of cult figures who continue to inspire us today.

Hosting distinctive figures from both the local and international music scenes, Kendine Has Exhibition takes place between 8 and 18 October at Yapı Kredi bomontiada 4th floor and Zeplin Pub’s Bağdat Caddesi location.

Leo Xandre

MÁRIA ŠVARBOVÁ

ALT – White Room – Yapı Kredi bomontiada
8-18 October
Open Everyday 10 a.m – 8 p.m

Mária Švarbová, challenges the traditional approach to portraiture with her unique, postmodern style. In 2017, she was featured in Forbes’s ’30 Under 30’ list and received the 2018 Hasselblad Masters Award for the series, Swimming Pool. The works in the series, dominated by emotionless expressions, minimalist backgrounds, a retro feeling and functional geometric lines reflect the aesthetic harmony between people, environment and colours.

Despite having studied restoration and archaeology, her preferred artistic medium is photography. Her solo and group exhibitions have placed her amidst the vanguard of her contemporaries, attracting features in Vogue, CNN and The Guardian, amongst others. She enjoys considerable attention on social media and received a commission for a billboard-sized promotion on the massive Taipei 101 tower in Taiwan. In 2019, Apple commissioned Švarbová to create an exclusive photography series, shot by iPhone.

Mária Švarbová, 7, Horizon, 2020

GRÉGORY ESCANDE

ALT – Yapı Kredi bomontiada
8-18 October
Open Everyday 10 a.m – 8 p.m

Grégory Escande was born in Seville, Spain, and has since lived in Madrid, Vigo and Provence. Escande obtained a Bachelor’s in Visual Arts, another one in French Literature and Linguistics, and finally a Master’s in Education, after internships at the University of Alicante and Madrid. Escande has worked in Spain, Japan, Zimbabwe and now in Maputo, Mozambique.

Since university, he has embraced photography – starting with manual film cameras, spending endless hours developing his films in the darkroom. He since has started using a digital camera. He has participated in four collective exhibitions: one at the Fondation Blachere in Apt, one in Aix-en-Provence, another for Spazio Italia, and one for the American International School (AISM).

Grégory Escande

OPPO MOBILE PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION

ALT – Yapı Kredi bomontiada
8-18 October
Open Everyday 10 a.m – 8 p.m

The ‘capture the moment’ mission has taken on a new meaning with the advent of mobile photography. The OPPO Mobile Photography Exhibition brings together the moments captured by well-known figures with OPPO phones, using the slogan #MyLifeisMyCollection. Creating a bridge between time and space, digital images are transformed from being the memory of those who took them to a story that tells them.

Didem Soydan’s black-and-white Istanbul shots emphasise the strong bond between the city and its people. Photographs taken by traveller Kerimcan Akduman during his travels from Japan to Brazil are like a diary. Koray Özpalamutçu’s shots are sleek enough to rival those taken with professional cameras. Murat Dağaslan’s photographs, which could almost serve as a lesson in the use of light and colour, capture not only the moments themselves but also the moods. Constructing the most well-known images of Istanbul from scratch, Sefa Yamak explores the endless possibilities in photography. Last but not least, Umut Eker honours experimentation by capturing both the static and dynamic aspects of spontaneous moments.

Sefa Yamak

PERFORM AND NEGOTIATE

Gallery – Yapı Kredi bomontiada
8-18 October
Open Everyday 10 a.m – 7 p.m

Perform and Negotiate, curated by Ali Taptık, brings together works that differ from the documentary and narrative aspects of photography:

Zeynep Kayan’s semi-abstract compositions of her own body and construction materials, Özlem Şimşek’s disguises which insert the image of a modern woman into paintings from a hundred years ago, Sıla Yalazan’s pursuit of new narratives with the neighbourhood kids of Tarlabaşı, where her studio is located, and Sergen Şehitoğlu’s webcam portraits which host a negotiation between the photographer and the subject.

The playful attitudes of the artists, who use photography as a tool for dialogue or staging, bring forward its potential as a communication tool beyond its representative abilities.

Özlem Şimşek, Selfportrait as Hale Asaf (After Hale Asaf), 2011