After 15 years, Istanbul Biennial director resigns after controversy over curator selection

Bige Örer, director of the Istanbul Biennial at the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and the Arts (Ä°KSV) since 2008, and director of Ä°KSV Contemporary Art Projects since 2018, has decided to step down from her positions as of January 15, 2024. This was announced by the Foundation itself, stressing that preparations for the 18th Istanbul Biennial will continue as planned, under the coordination of the Biennial team; warmly thanking Bige Örer for her contribution during the years she has held the important position and wishing her every success in her future projects, the Foundation specifies that an announcement regarding the appointment of a new director will be made in the coming days.

The resignation came from the director while there continues to be discussion about how the curator of the 2024 edition was selected. Much of the criticism on the issue came, as Art news reports, after an article last August in Art Newspaper stated that the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and the Arts had refused to appoint Defne Ayas, a Turkish-born but Berlin-based curator who was unanimously chosen by a jury of international specialists as the best candidate to curate the next edition of the exhibition, to instead appoint Iwona Blazwick, who at the time of the selection was a serving member of the advisory committee to select a curator for the Istanbul Biennial 2024. This had then raised concerns about conflicts of interest. The article in Art Newspaper also stated that three members of the Biennial’s advisory board had resigned after being informed of Blazwick’s appointment, and that the Foundation may have deemed it too risky to commission Ayas to curate the Biennial after the controversy that occurred when he curated the exhibition for the Turkey Pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennial, as the catalog included an essay written by Rakel Dink, the widow of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink who was murdered in Istanbul in 2007. In her text, Dink made a fleeting reference to the “Armenian genocide” to describe the pain of her people, and following a denunciation by the Turkish government, which had denied that the genocide had occurred, the catalog had been withdrawn.

The article had then led many to question why the Foundation for its part had refused to publish the list of advisory committee members on its website, as it had done in previous editions.

Following the criticism that arose, the Foundation wrote in a note last October, “As the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and the Arts (Ä°KSV), we always pay close attention to the opinions and comments of the cultural and art world on our activities. In this spirit, we have carefully considered recent criticism on how we selected the curator of the 18th Istanbul Biennial. Over the years, we have continuously sought to improve our biennial curator selection procedure and have made numerous changes to this process. That said, curator candidates have always been evaluated solely on the basis of their artistic vision for the Istanbul Biennial, their proposed approach to the biennial, and the compatibility of their approach with the expectations of Ä°KSV management. To further improve the transparency and impartiality of curatorial selection, we have made the following changes to the regulations of the Istanbul Biennial Advisory Board: Starting with the 2026 Istanbul Biennial, Ä°KSV management may only invite a curator from among the three candidates proposed by the Istanbul Biennial Advisory Board. If none of the proposed curators offers an approach in line with the Foundation’s vision, the Ä°KSV leadership may ask the advisory board to meet again and propose different candidates. An additional amendment to the rules prohibits members of the Istanbul Biennial advisory board from being invited to curatorial positions during their term. Even if they resign from the board, they cannot be considered candidates for the biennial in question.”

We will see how this issue evolves as we await the appointment of the next director.

After 15 years, Istanbul Biennial director resigns after controversy over curator selection

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.