13th Istanbul Biennial (2013): A Retreat to the Institution

3/6/2015 Afterall • Online • 13th Istanbul Biennial: A Retreat to the Institution

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13th Istanbul Biennial: A Retreat to theInstitutionTom SnowTags: Gordon Matta-Clark, Occupy

Reviews / 21.11.2013Print

‘Given the civil hierarchy suggestedthrough the term “barbarian”, onemight have expected the stakes inthe formation of a “public domain” –made explicit during Gezi – to be atthe centre of a critical inquiryfocusing on “the role ofcontemporary art as an agent thatboth makes and unmakes what isconsidered public”.’

In January 2013 curator Fulya Erdemci announced the title and conceptual framework for the 13thIstanbul Biennial. ‘Mom, Am I Barbarian?’ is a quote taken from Istanbul-based poet Lale Müldür, cited inorder to draw comparison between ‘barbarity in its negative sense’ (subjunctive to the injustices of post-colonialism and social inequality), and historical advocating of the ‘primordial, primitive and irrational’associated with creative movements such as Dada and Surrealism in the West.1 More specifically, thecuratorial premise aimed to question the politics of urban space and the public domain through exhibitionin vacant buildings, and the commissioning of several public installations. At the end of this outlineErdemci notes the tentativeness of her proposal: ‘Due to the uncertainties related to the highly speculativenature of urban transformations in Istanbul, the allocation of these spaces is quite precarious. In thissense, the Biennial will share the common experience of precarity that the city’s dwellers experienceeveryday’.2 Though the contested sites of Gezi Park and Taksim Square are noted, it is probably fair to saythat nothing could have prepared the curator for the scale and size of the Diren Gezi Parkı (Resist GeziPark), otherwise known as the Occupy Gezi Park demonstrations, to erupt at the end of May 2013.However, given the civil hierarchy suggested through the term ‘barbarian’, one might have expected thestakes in the formation of a ‘public domain’ – made explicit during Gezi – to be at the centre of a criticalinquiry focusing on ‘the role of contemporary art as an agent that both makes and unmakes what isconsidered public’.

Occupy Gezi started with around fiftyenvironmentalists camping out in the park toprevent demolition of one of the few remaininggreen spaces in the centre of the city. PrimeMinister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s proposal wasto build a shopping mall and reconstruct amosque and Ottoman-era military barracks onthe site.3 By the end of May the size of theprotests had grown dramatically, only to be metwith excessive use of tear gas and tent burningby the municipal police force.4 Rather than deterthe encampment, however, growing numbers ofcivilians, activists, artists and celebrities joined

the creative resistance initiatives, spreading to several cities across Turkey. Despite it being a largely

Christoph Schäfer, Bostanorama A Marmaray Tunnel Excavation of the Collective Productions ofSpace Through Istanbul's Stadiums, Parks and Gardens (Present and Recently Destroyed), 2013, seriesof drawings, Aquarellpen, charcoal, pastel, gouache, acrylic on paper, dimensions variable.Photograph: Servet Dilber. Courtesy the artist



peaceful protest, police brutality escalated with the introduction of water cannons, early morning raids

and tear gas canisters fired directly at civilians in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir amongst other cities.5

Erdoğan’s confused and repeated denial of the civilian support garnered by the demonstrations was to be

emphasised across domestic media platforms, including a provocative statement from the Prime Minister

suggesting the strength of his support across the nation: ‘If this is about holding meetings, if this is a social

movement, where they gather 20, I will get up and gather 200,000 people. Where they gather 100,000, I

will bring together one million from my party’.6 By 1 June videos showing the extent of police violence

were quickly spreading across the internet; global interest was only provoked by news of CNN Türk’s now

infamous airing of a penguin documentary whilst international news networks broadcast the clashes.

Of course making use of social media and other mobile

technologies was an important part in the organisation of

protestors in much of Turkey. This was made all the more

explicit on 5 June when ‘cyber crimes’ raids were carried out in

Izmir targeting individuals accused of fostering antipathy

towards police response to nationwide protests.7 But the use of

social media shouldn’t overshadow the extent to which visibility

was gained by the protesters by occupying urban space. From

an aesthetic viewpoint, this relates to what Judith Butler has

recently termed ‘bodies in alliance’ with regards to both the

Arab Spring and Occupy movements of 2010–11. The very

accumulation of bodies in public space can, for Butler, be an

action that lays claim to the ‘public’ itself, reconfiguring the

physical and psychological environment as a space for direct

politics.8 It is the sheer number of bodies, scale and duration of

the protests across Turkey, extending into various media, that

presented the biggest obstacle for the state. Though occupation

began with disputation over Gezi Park specifically, the issue

inevitably catalysed the increasing discontent felt towards the

authoritarianism of the current Turkish government (from the

Adalet ve Kalınma Partisi, AKP). The occupational aspect of the demonstrations further worked to

instrumentalise the networks of social and official news media, rallying support through a show of

collective resistance and therefore clearly distorting the line between politics and aesthetics.9 For Butler,

many of the mass demonstrations seen during the last few years have not only designated a space to

appear, but used the means of visibility itself to temporarily establish a civil right: ‘In wresting that power,

a new space is created, a new “between” bodies, as it were, that lays claim to existing space through the

action of new alliance’.10

Bodies are thus animated in existing space through an act of reclamation that

resignifies the meaning of a public domain.

The utility of succinct media images or indeed any form of visual representation for political purposes has

been by now well established. In this instance, the occupation might be read as an attempt to counter the

shortcomings of existing forms of political and aesthetic representation. Individuals also went to varying

lengths to counter misportrayal at the accusation of violence stemming from the protesters themselves,

and to demonstrate the non-violent ethos largely agreed upon by the occupation. A good example of this

was when performance artist Erdem Gündüz began staring at the Atatürk Cultural Centre in Taksim

Square on 17 June, also due for demolition. Quickly dubbed ‘the standing man’, his form of protest went

‘viral’ and was quickly replicated all across Istanbul and Turkey. The real strength of this performance was

to highlight how passive resistance stood in stark contrast to the violence the police and Gendarmarie

used to repress members of the public who dared to demonstrate.11

There were also a number of occasions in which the actions of the Turkish authorities further complicated

a politics of aesthetics. For example, on 16 June municipal workers were deployed to replant flowerbeds in

Gezi during the early hours of the morning, immediately following clearance of the park. This can be read

as an effort to instantly erase any sign of dissent and thus maintain an aesthetic of state order, contrary to

the highly visible anti-government campaign established over the previous weeks. Another instance

Ayşe Erkmen, bangbangbang, 2013, acrane and a buoy. Photograph: ServetDilber. Courtesy the artist; GalerieBarbara Weiss, Berlin; and Galeri Manâ,Istanbul



relates to the tragedy of Ethem Sarısülük; shot by police with a gas cannister in Ankara on 1 June,tragically losing his life a couple of weeks later as a result of the injuries suffered.12 Aside from theresponsible officers receiving police protection and escaping prosecution (the police actions were deemed‘self-defence’), reports suggested that the authorities thereafter took precautions to prevent individualpolice being identifiable by removing ID numbers from helmets.13 Such an incident inverts a commonunderstanding of surveillance, concealing identities rather than exposing them (either at ground-level orvia media broadcastings) and diminishes the possibilities of individuals having to account for their actionswhilst in uniform. This in turn works to sanction collective police actions as representing andrepresentative of the state apparatus. Whereupon activists that do not comply with the autocratic policeorders are reduced to receptors of governmental power; detained as criminals and eventually renderedunpatriotic.14 Examples of this include the detainment of volunteer doctors and medical staff providingprotesters with medical assistance during clashes, as well as the warning that anyone entering Gezi Parkor Taksim Square would be arrested and considered a terrorist.15

Erdemci’s text in the exhibition catalogue attempts to account forthe adaptations made to her original proposal as a result ofOccupy Gezi. Several statements are made that suggest the eventsunfolding around Gezi Park actually ‘showed us that as opposed toantagonistic politics, agonistic public domain based innegotiation, where marginalised voices are not suppressed by themajority, is possible’.16 My understanding of agonism (muchdiscussed by political theorist Chantal Mouffe) relates to the taskof creating a political forum, aiming to harmonise antagonisticrelations in political localities, shifting violent oppositionality ofpolitical enemies towards an adversary model based on debateand compromise. It is an attempt to reach a kind of ‘conflictual-consensus’ in which the benefit of the majority is debated at alegitimated political level. In short, a vision for the possibility ofan equivocal democracy.17 One might then ask where thepossibility of meaningful agonistic negotiation was achievedduring the Gezi unrest. Certainly there was the formation oftemporary forums all across Istanbul and other cities reminiscentof the general assemblies held during the Occupy movements of2011. And of course an agonistic terrain was an aim, and must

remain an aim. But what was ultimately demonstrated was the extraordinary level of violence thatpolitical dissent would be met with in Turkey today, under the authority of the AKP. The plans todemolish Gezi Park are on hold under a court order at the time of writing, however remain the continualfocus of dispute.18 Authorities also plan to prosecute a high number of protesters with charges relating totheir attempt to subvert state ideology.19

Erdemci goes on to explain that it was a curatorial decision to withdraw from the urban space, and insteadcollaborate with existing institutions. The Antrepo no.3 venue in Tophane (a warehouse used previouslyfor the biennial, due to become a luxury hotel), and the Greek Primary School in Galata remained part ofthe biennial as planned. Recruited art spaces included ARTER and Salt Beyoğlu on Istiklal Avenue, and5533 located in a shopping complex on the other side of the Golden Horn. This may be understandable,given that violence has carried on throughout Turkey, erupting in Taksim over the week leading up to theopening. Clashes also shifted to Kadıköy on Istanbul’s Asian side during the opening week in response todeath of Ahmet Atakan on 10 September, the sixth victim of police brutality this summer.20 The viewertherefore should not be too quick to dismiss the compromises forced upon the exhibition. However, itdoes seem curious to suggest that withdrawing from public installation ‘is a more powerful politicalstatement than having them materialise under such conditions’. Erdemci continues: ‘I believe that bywithdrawing from urban public spaces, thus marking the presence through the absence, we can contributeto the space of freedom, to the creative and participatory demonstrations and forums instigated by theGezi resistance’.21 This, it seems to me, is too easily compatible with the repressive agenda of stateauthorities, who clearly made it their task to remove the long-term possibility of agonistic politics from the

Diego Bianchi, Market or Die, 2013,installation with performance,dimensions variable. Photograph:Servet Dilber. Courtesy the artist andAlberto Sendrós Gallery, Buenos Aires



space of the city. It might be true that the agonistic approach requires rethinking engagement withexisting institutions, but must artworks only be exhibited according to the protocols of established artspaces?

Installations such as Market or Die (2013) by Argentinean artist Diego Bianchi at Salt certainly didn’tsupport Erdemci’s absentee politics. Wildly composed of various everyday commodity products on salearound the city – from domestic cleaning agents to bottled water – the work intended to consider theproducts involved in a domestic economy. Ubiquitous commercial activity apparently represented by theconstruction of a chaotic bric-a-brac-cum-marketplace filling the entrance space to Salt. However, in thecontext of Occupy, this fantastical assembly of everyday products ended up reading as a replication of themakeshift carnival aesthetic established by the Gezi protesters. In ARTER, photographs and a videodocumented Ataskoa (Traffic Jam, 2005) by Maider López. Reflecting on the use of cars in the Basquecountryside, López organised a traffic jam on the Aralar Range, in the Basque Country, publicising theevent via radio announcements, newspaper adverts, flyers and posters. This work might have beenunderstood as a meditation on art as a tool to choreograph social assembly – encouraging participants towork together to dissipate the gridlock. However, the video documenting the action revealed a team ofpeople in matching green t-shirts dissembling the jam. Spontaneity seemed to turn quickly to deference inthis work; and one began to wonder how it addressed the context of the exhibition, except for a ratherloose association with the countryside as a particular category of space. This was one of many works thatseemed to negate the conceptual intentions of the biennial, meaning that the viewer was distracted froman urgent politics of the public domain rather than invited to consider its formation.

A more relevant work exhibited in the biennial was Maxime Hourani’s residency at 5533, which wasorganised around a series of site visits and workshops discussing intersections of rural and urbandevelopments on the outskirts of Istanbul. Hourani invited members of various creative communities toconduct their own research into the infrastructural and socio-cultural conditions largely ignored bycorporate developers including government-backed domestic and commercial regeneration projects.5533, itself peripheral to the otherwise Beyoğlu-concentrated biennial venues, became a base from whichto attend poetry readings, musical performances and creative brainstorming activities. Hournani’s workappeared truly collaborative, demonstrating how an artist can facilitate infrastructural analyses throughan open engagement with members of multiple publics. Works exhibited on the terrace of the GreekPrimary School also seemed more appropriate to the Biennial’s purported aims, focusing on varioussociological, environmental and ecological issues, mostly in Istanbul. Serkan Taycan’s project Iki denizarasi (Between Two Seas, 2013) traced the psychogeography of ‘Kanal Istanbul’ a major and ongoingconstruction project currently being planned in Istanbul, which aims to connect the Black Sea and theMarmara to establish an alternative shipping route to the Bosphorus. Mapping and photographing hisown 69-kilometre route through effected areas, Taycan’s project works to highlight the ecological, socialand historic impact of the project, including the disregard for important archaeological sites which will bedestroyed.

A highlight ofAntrepo no.3,the largestvenue, was HitoSteyerl’s Is aMuseum a

Battlefield?

(2013). Thehalf-hour videolectureelaborated on aseries ofconnectionsbetweenbiennialHito Steyerl, Is a Museum a Battlefield?, 2013, video of performance, 36min. Photograph: Servet



‘Schäfer’s drawings depictintriguingly bizarre, parallel socialsituations gleaned from interviewsand other encounters, and aim toreimage an aesthetic of community,markedly different to corporatisedartists’ impressions in content andexecution.’

funding(particularly

Siemens and Koç Holding) and the arms trade, making a conceptual parallel between the shot of a firearmand the shooting of film. The success of this piece was the manner in which it brought the politics of bothsubject and medium to the fore, allowing the operation of an artwork to account for itself during itsexhibition. It was to the biennial’s credit that these works were included. But their presence amongst amajority of disparate works meant that their impact on the show was limited. Also on display were anumber of works from the 1970s by artists including Gordon Matta-Clark, Mierle Laderman Ukeles,Akademia Ruchu, Jirí Kovanda, Nil Yalter and Judy Blum Reddy, which attempted to draw comparisonwith various modes of Institutional Critique and artistic activism. For example, documentation of Matta-Clark’s Conical Intersect (1975) show his performative architectural intervention into two seventeenth-century buildings scheduled for demolition during the construction of the Centre Georges Pompidou inParis. Matta-Clark’s work explicitly engaged with important urban archaeological issues, complicated bythe destruction of historically significant buildings to make way for the gentrification of the Beauborg areaand the establishment of a major art institution; the Pompidou opened just two years later in 1977. Thecounterpart commission at the Istanbul biennial was Ayşe Erkmen’s bangbangbang (2013), a giant greenball hung outside Antrepo no.3, meant to simulate a wrecking ball and thus hinting at the building’simminent repurposing as a hotel. However, Erkmen’s statement made for a rather weak comparison toMatta-Clark’s actual intervention. And whilst some other parallels were interesting, I did wonder why theworks of other 1970s practitioners (such as Hans Haacke) were missing if an institutionally criticalnarrative was to be elaborated – especially for an intended general public of Istanbul.22

This venue also contained a small number ofunrealised maquettes and proposals forinstallations around Istanbul. A scale model andtext by design agency Rietveld Landscape, forexample, described a proposal to fill TaksimSquare with pulsating floodlights, beaming outfrom the Atatürk Cultural Centre. ChristophSchäfer had contributed to the renaming of ParkFiction in Hamburg to ‘Gezi Park Fiction St.Pauli’ in solidarity with events over the summer,and was represented in Antrepo no.3 by a seriesof speculative drawings focused on alternative social development in Istanbul. Schäfer’s drawings depictintriguingly bizarre, parallel social situations gleaned from interviews and other encounters, and aim toreimage an aesthetic of community, markedly different to corporatised artists’ impressions in content andexecution. This work was one of very few with a direct approach to the current situation in the city. Theemphasis throughout the biennial was largely on international works and the vague theme of fragmentedrural topographies and social issues. Edi Hirose’s documentary photography, for example, focuses onpoverty stricken communities in his hometown of Lima in Peru. Whilst Hirose’s photography isinteresting in its own right, its presence in the biennial only bore arbitrary comparison with the specificityof Istanbul. Although there might have been some links to be made between the ecology of global capitaland the ecology of the city running throughout the works included, this went largely unexplained andremained tenuous for the most part. Overall the biennial’s withdrawal from the space and specificity of thecity left venues filled with work that felt out of sync with the biennial’s conceptual framework, inevitablyfailing to acknowledge the stakes of its own realisation.

In a recent issue of October dedicated to Occupy Wall Street (OWS), David Joselit pointed out that artalready occupies a lot of cultural space; physically, financially and philosophically, reminding us that it isperfectly possible for the institution to act as a critical forum through questioning the role of ‘institutionalcritique’ and ‘uneven internal developments’. ‘The museum is not critiqued but repurposed: occupied bysomething else. This is the lesson I take from OWS: don’t just critique, occupy!’.23 It’s not so much that‘Mom, Am I Barbarian’ didn’t touch upon such issues at all, but that there were far too few examples. TheIstanbul Biennial has been running for 26 years, playing an important role in the development of athriving contemporary art scene in the city (something that has not always been entirely welcomed),

Dilber. Courtesy the artist and the Public Program of the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam



‘Why was the relationship betweenactivism and art not a specificconcern of this biennial, given thatthe proliferation of a new activistvisual culture was directly related tothe conceptual framework and itseventual retreat?’

which was alsoleft largelyunaddressed.During the2009 edition,the curatorsand participantsof the IstanbulBiennial facedcriticism by themovementDirenal-Istanbul(Resistanbul)with regards toits corporatesponsor KoçHoldings, and

their complicity within the increasingly neoliberal orientation of Turkey and Istanbul – claiming thatwithin this context their political art was meaningless.24 2009 was the year during which Istanbul wouldwelcome the IMF and World Bank to the city, which is in many ways emblematic of Turkey’s economicreforms since the early 1980s. It also seemed strange that this biennial didn’t address other points ofcontention such as the 2010 Tophane Art Walk attacks, when a group of around thirty locals violentlytargeted galleries and the art community possibly to protest against the gentrification processes andalcohol consumption on the street.25 Given that a large part of the biennial is often located in Tophane itmight be asked why the question of gentrification was not taken up on this occasion, especiallyconsidering that the 2011 biennial omitted any political reference to the city almost entirely, withdrawingcompletely to the Antrepo venues. 2010 was also the year Istanbul was appointed European Capital ofCulture, despite only achieving EU candidacy, surely two crucial factors to reflect upon with regards to theformation of a contemporary public domain.

The Istanbul Biennial is not the first large-scaleperennial exhibition to deal with Occupymovements. In 2012 both the Berlin Biennialand Documenta collaborated to differentdegrees with activists – admittedly in quitedifferent circumstances – to different reception.dOCUMENTA(13) allowed the uninvitedactivists to remain on the lawn of theFridericianum, whilst the Berlin Biennial invitedoccupants to stage their protest in the ground

floor of Kunst-Werke, eventually suffering criticisms of instrumentalisation and objectification.26 Whywas the relationship between activism and art not a specific concern of this biennial, given that theproliferation of a new activist visual culture was directly related to the conceptual framework and itseventual retreat? It is not just the withdrawal from public space that is at issue here, but the manner inwhich the ‘public domain’ itself is contested. The public domain, after all, describes a space of interactionamongst people. A democratic (or agonistic) public domain therefore is a space in which the articulationof protest, debate and political demonstration may be realised; and such democratic vision was directlythreatened in Turkey over the summer of 2013. Any art exhibition aspiring to critique or participate in thepublic domain must also realise the politics of its own setting, including its establishment within aninstitutional sphere. Perhaps the 2013 Istanbul Biennial fell victim to its own standing by clinging to aconventional international format. However, if biennials are to resist being dissolved entirely into theeconomy of globalism, it is surely time for a little self-reflection. If a retreat to established art spaces wasto be a ‘more powerful political statement’ in relation to Gezi and the city of Istanbul, then the scale andinternational ambitions of the show only worked to marginalise such politics. Despite the sympathy one

Christoph Schäfer, Bostanorama A Marmaray Tunnel Excavation of the Collective Productionsof Space Through Istanbul's Stadiums, Parks and Gardens (Present and Recently Destroyed),2013, series of drawings, Aquarellpen, charcoal, pastel, gouache, acrylic on paper, dimensionsvariable. Photograph: Servet Dilber. Courtesy the artist



feels for the organisers in the context of Occupy Gezi, the overwhelming feeling is that the opportunity toreally challenge ‘the common experience of precarity’ during the 2013 edition was ultimately anopportunity missed. 21Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on emailShare on printMore Sharing Services

Footnotes

1. See Fulya Erdemci, ‘13th Istanbul Biennial ConceptualFramework,’, Istanbul Biennial website, 8 January 2013, availableat http://13b.iksv.org/en.↑

2. Ibid.↑

3. See ‘Turkey clashes: Why are Gezi Park and Taksim Square soimportant?’, BBC News [website], 7 July 2013, available athttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22753752.↑

4. See ‘Raid on “Occupy Taksim Park” demonstrators triggersoutcry’, Hurriyet Daily News [online newspaper], 30 May 2013,available at http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/raid-on-occupy-taksim-park-demonstrators-triggers-outcry.aspx?pageID=238&nID=47870&NewsCatID=341.↑

5. See ‘Clashes in Istanbul – Erdogan: For every 100,000 protesters,I will bring out a million from my party’, Haaretz [onlinenewspaper], 1 June 2013, available athttp://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.527188.↑

6. See ‘Izmir social media operation: 24 people in custody’, news.az,5 June 2013, available athttp://www.news.az/articles/turkey/80268.↑

7. ‘Demonstrations are one of the few ways that police power isovercome, especially when those assemblies become at once toolarge and too mobile, too condensed and too diffuse, to becontained by police power and when they have the resources toregenerate themselves on the spot.’ See Judith Butler, ‘Bodies inAlliance and the Politics of the Street,’ in Meg McLagan and YatesMcKee (ed.), Sensible Politics: The Visual Culture ofNongovernmental Activism, New York: Zone Books, 2012, p.119.↑

8. By ‘politics of aesthetics,’ I am referring to Jacques Rancière’s wellknown description: ‘a delimitation of spaces and times, of thevisible and invisible, of speech and noise, that simultaneouslydetermines the place and stakes of politics as a form of experience.Politics revolves around what is seen and what can be said aboutit, around who has the ability to see and the talent to speak,around the properties of spaces and the possibilities of time’. See,Jacques Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution ofthe Sensible (trans. Gabriel Rockhill), London and New York:Continuum, 2004, p.13.↑

9. J. Butler, ‘Bodies in Alliance’, op. cit., p.125.↑

10. The Gendamarie are a military police force usually reserved fordealing with political unrest in the Turkish national context. SeeLale Kemal, ‘Turkey’s Military and the Gezi Park Protests’, AlMonitor [online newspaper], 18 June 2013, available athttp://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/06/turkey-protests-military-stance-gezi.html; and Richard Seymour,‘Turkey’s “Standing Man” shows how passive resistance can shakea state’, The Guardian, 18 June 2013, available athttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/18/turkey-standing-man. A video recording of Erdem Gündüz's protest isavailable at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fbzcdm91HU.↑

11. See, for example, ‘Officer accused of killing Gezi Park protesterSarısülük given police protection’, Huriyet Daily News [onlinenewspaper], 3 July 2013, available athttp://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/officer-accused-of-killing-

Comments



gezi-park-protester-sarisuluk-given-police-protection.aspx?pageID=238&nID=49939&NewsCatID=341. href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/officer-accused-of-killing-gezi-park-protester-sarisuluk-given-police-protection.aspx?pageID=238&nID=49939&NewsCatID=341%3C/a%3E%3Ca%3E.%C2%A0Other%3C/a%3E">Othertactics include the rapid removal of anti-government graffiti.↑

12. See, for example, Taksim Solidarity, ‘We are at a Loss for Words,but Surely Our Country Doesn't Deserve This’, TaksimDayainsmasi [blog], 16 June 2013, available athttp://taksimdayanisma.org/page/2?lang=en. ↑

13. My thinking relates to Michel Foucault’s essay ‘The PoliticalTechnology of Individuals’, in which he suggests political unity isthe result of the modern state’s effort to marginalise thosemembers of society who choose to operate against the code of stateapparatus. Only in exception circumstances is the individualtreated as such, whether venerated or prosecuted according to adominant governmental logic. See James Faubion (ed.), Power:Essential Works of Foucault 1954 – 1984, Volume 3 (trans. RobertHurley et al.), London: Penguin Books, 1994, pp.403–17.↑

14. See ‘Doctors, football fans detained in Istanbul protests’, HuriyetDaily News [online newspaper], 16 July 2013, available athttp://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/doctors-football-fans-detained-in-istanbul-protests.aspx?pageID=238&nID=48894&NewsCatID=341; ‘Police to considerprotesters in Istanbul’s Taksim Square terror organizationmembers: Minister’, Huriyet Daily News [online newspaper], 16July 2013, available at http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/police-to-consider-protesters-in-istanbuls-taksim-square-terror-organization-members-minister.aspx?PageID=238&NID=48875&NewsCatID=338href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/police-to-consider-protesters-in-istanbuls-taksim-square-terror-organization-members-minister.aspx?PageID=238&NID=48875&NewsCatID=338%3C/a%3E">.↑

15. F. Erdemci, ‘Mom, Am I Barbarian?’, 13th Istanbul Biennial, MomAm I Barbarian (exh. cat., ed. Liz Erçevik Amado), Istanbul:Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts and Yapı KrediPublications, 2013, p.25.↑

16. See Chantal Mouffe, On the Political, London and New York:Routledge, 2005, pp.51–52.↑

17. See ‘Turkish court annuls stay of execution on Istanbul's Gezi Parkconstruction’, Huriyet Daily News [online newspaper], 22 July2013, available at http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-court-annuls-stay-of-execution-on-istanbuls-gezi-park-construction.aspx?pageID=238&nID=51164&NewsCatID=340.↑

18. See ‘Mass legal cases awaiting Gezi protesters in Istanbul’, HuriyetDaily News [online newspaper], 19 September 2013, available athttp://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/mass-legal-cases-awaiting-gezi-protesters-in-istanbul.aspx?pageID=238&nID=54763&NewsCatID=341.↑

19. See ‘Police intervene against protesters during demos in Istanbul’sKadıköy’, Huriyet Daily News [online newspaper], 11 September2013, available at http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/police-intervene-against-protesters-during-demos-in-istanbuls-kadikoy.aspx?pageID=238&nID=54309&NewsCatID=341.↑

20. F. Erdemci, ‘Mom, Am I Barbarian?’, op. cit., p.27.↑

21. On 23 July 2013 it was announced that entry to the 2013 biennialwould be free of charge for the first time. See the press section ofthe Istanbul Biennial website, available at http://13b.iksv.org/en.↑



22. David Joselit, Silvia Kolbowski and Matthew Friday, ‘Roundtable:

The Social Artwork’, October, no.142, Fall 2012, p.78.↑

23. See Gail Day, Steven Edwards and David Mabb, ‘What Keeps

Mankind Alive?’, Historical Materialism, vol.18, issue 4, 2010,

pp.135–71.↑

24. For a detailed discussion on the 2010 Tophane Art Walk attacks,

see Banu Karaca, ‘When Duty Calls…: Questions of Sensitivity and

Responsibility in Light of the Tophane Events’, Red Thread, issue

3, 2011, available at http://www.red-thread.org/en/article.asp?

a=49.↑

25. For a critical discussion of both the 7th Berlin Biennial and

dOCUMENTA(13) in the context of Occupy encampments, see

Maya and Reuben Fowkes, ‘#Occupy Art’, Art Monthly,

September 2012, pp.11–14.↑

13th Istanbul Biennial (2013): A Retreat to the Institution

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