Galata district, ALANistanbul-I and Manzara Perspectives gallery spaces are hosting a major contemporary art exhibition. Public spaces, walls, shops and art spaces in various parts of Galata are transformed into a large-scale exhibition in relation to the interiors of ALANistanbul. From various installations to street art, from oil paintings to videos, a wide range of expressive tools of contemporary art are being produced by prominent local and foreign young artists in interaction with their surroundings in an urban network. Nihan Çetinkaya‘s curatorship, “Soft City” can be seen in various indoor and outdoor spaces of ALANistanbul-I, Manzara-Perspectives and Galata between May 18, 2011 and June 18, 2011. Referring to the trauma caused by the imposed and imposed urban speed and transformation, but at the same time showing the resistance we develop in our daily lives as a result of our reckoning with the personal, Soft City is an exhibition that a wider audience is expected to empathize with without compromising the artistic point of view, and is inspired by urban sociologist Jonathan Raban’s Soft City. “Unlike villages and small towns, it is the nature of cities to be malleable. We knead them with our ideas about ourselves, and when we impose our own personal form on them, they in turn shape us through their resistance. In this sense, it seems to me that living in the city is an art.” The exhibition, which needs to remind us once again of Raban’s words, aims to bring together the soft city depictions of 21 artists working specifically on the city and urban transformation with the maximum possible number of viewers by spreading their own soft city depictions to many indoor and outdoor spaces in Galata. As follows: ALANistanbul, located on Galip Dede Street, will be the main venue for the exhibition, and open and closed public spaces will be used, such as the two shops of Manzara Perspectives on Tatar Beyi Street no:27, which are dedicated to art, an abandoned facade on this street, a projection on the wall at night, a shop window on Serdar-ı Ekrem Street, and a café at the Tophane end of Lüleci Hendek Street. The street where ALANistanbul is located is currently riddled with holes due to a large-scale excavation and renovation work being carried out by the municipality. This work will also be made a critical part of the exhibition: Starting from the gallery to where the works are located, tulips in plastic pots will create a marking system, allowing the viewer to meet the works. In addition, the catalog, which is considered as another extension of the exhibition, will be designed as an alternative “exhibition space” in the process following the opening, in a way to interpret the meeting of the artists’ works with the audience. Detailed information about the works and locations of the exhibition can be found at www.alanistanbul.com and www.manzara-perspectives.com.

ALANIstanbul Galip Dede Caddesi No:24 Tünel

Alfredo Ramos Fernandez, Amandine Braci, Erdem Helvacıoglu, Erkin Gören, Katarzyna Badach, Levent Kunt, Monika Bulanda, Merve Çanakçı, Neriman Polat, Nalan Yırtmaç

Pınar Ögrenci, Timothée Huguet, Zeynep Beler

Landscape Perspectives

Tatar Beyi Sok. No:27 Galata

Antonio Cosentino

Neriman Polat

Tatar Beyi Sokak No: 31A

Thimothée Huguet

Tatar Beyi Sokak No: 11

Sevil Tunaboylu

Tatar Beyi Sokak No: 5A

Dawn Catalbas

Serdar-ı Ekrem Caddesi No: 3

Silver Identity

Bahar Korçan Serdar-ı Ekrem Caddesi No: 9

Murat Pulat

Naime Kıraathanesi Lüleci Handek Cad. No: 9

Jade Akdeniz Graf

Lüleci Hendek Caddesi No: 37

Mirjam Linshooten-Sameer Farooq

Performance along Lüleci Hendek Street

Sohrab Kashani

Wednesday, May 18, 17.30-18.30