Millî Reasürans Art Gallery

A Distinctive Institutional Gallery:Millî Reasürans Art Gallery

It is a fact that institutional and private galleries have, in the past and today, made significant contributions to Turkish art. Millî Reasürans Art Gallery is an institutional gallery whose name is frequently in the agenda with the exhibitions it helds and the books it publishes.

The story of Millî Reasürans Art Gallery started in October 1994 by Millî Reasürans 's planning a section of its business complex in Teşvikiye, architects of which were Sevinç and Hadi Şandor, for cultural activities, reserving in this section a library, an auditorium and a gallery.

Within the past fourteen years Millî Reasürans Art Gallery has organized more than 100 exhibitions which all had excellent echos in the art circles and were followed with interest. The gallery has published approximately ninety books and catalogues with texts by famous Turkish and foreign authors and art critics.
Millî Reasürans Art Gallery is an institutional gallery which developed a new kind of understanding by organizing for the first time in Turkey extensive retrospective, thematic and foreign exhibitions and is considered today as being among the leading galleries in this field.

Millî Reasürans Art Gallery also organizes exhibitions abroad (Germany, Slovenia, Bosna-Hersek, Georgia, etc.) and the Rural Architecture in the Eastern Black Sea Region exhibition is on show until 11th November at the oldest museum of architecture in the world, the Museum for Finnish Architecture in Helsinki from where the exhibit will travel through Europe.

Retrospective Exhibitions - Books (Monographies and/or Biographies)
Millî Reasürans Art Gallery which has a privileged place among the institutional galleries fills with its activities an important gap in the field of artistic events. It is the leading institution in the art field with the books it publishes and retrospective exhibitions it organized so far of artists such as Kuzgun Acar, Naile Akıncı, Avni Arbaş, Tiraje Dikmen, Şakir Eczacıbaşı, Turan Erol, Neşet Günal, İhsan Cemal Karaburçak, Saim Özeren, Orhan Peker, Nevhiz Tanyeli, Eşref Üren, etc.

Selective Exhibitions of Turkish Artists - Books
Millî Reasürans Art Gallery has given support to Turkish art by organizing exhibitions and publishing books and catalogues of artists such as Murat Aksoy, Rahmi Aksungur, Bilge Alkor, Gülgün Başarır, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Abidin Dino, Sebla Eczacıbaşı, Ali Arif Ersen, Haşim Nur Gürel, Can Göknil, Sedef Hatapkapulu, Mustafa Horasan, Balkan Naci İslimyeli, Azade Köker, Ahmet Oran, Necmettin Özlü, İrfan Önürmen, Tayfun Pirselimoğlu, Kemal Seyhan, Emine Sılan, Cengiz Tacer, Filiz Tokcan, Fatma Tülin and İsmail Türemen .

Thematic Exhibitions
In Turkish art history there is great need for thematic exhibitions furnishing information and research about various periods, facts and important artists: information and documents disappear so easily. In the Western world such activities are generally organized by museums and institutes. In this respect the exhibition and publications by Millî Reasürans Art Gallery called "Yurt Gezileri" (Country Tours) and "Yurt" (Country) paintings (1938-1943)", "The Nude", "Rural Architecture in the Eastern Black Sea Region", "18th-19th Century Anatolian Kilims-Brigitte and Ayan Gülgönen Collection", "…with regard to" by EAA Achitecture and Haymatloz are good examples.

Cultural Activities
In recent years institutional galleries also made exhibitions and publications regarding cultural and social themes in an interdisciplinary environment using paintings, photographs, graphics, etc. The exhibitions and publications by Millî Reasürans Art Gallery in honour of the 75th anniversary of the Turkish Republic and the documentary exhibition, video-film and the book: "Thinking for Atatürk - Two Architects: Bruno Taut and Emin Onat, Two Works of Art: The Catafalque and the Mausoleum" in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Afife Batur are good examples in this field. This exhibition has drawn significant attention of the public as it was the first complete monography written in respect of both the Catafalque of Atatürk, the Mausoleum and its architects, Bruno Taut and Emin Onat, important architects in Turkish and German architectural history. The exhibition was also shown in Cyprus, Bursa, Gaziantep and in various cities of Germany. Also, the exhibition called "Istanbul: City where faiths meet" organized by Millî Reasürans Art Gallery has attracted considerable attention not only in Turkey but also abroad.

Important foreign exhibitions
In Turkey, channels with today's world art are nearly non existent. Millî Reasürans Art Gallery is also in this field an avant-garde institution with exhibitions of "Léopold -Lévy", "The Major Tradition and Italian Painting in the Nineties", "Maeght Collection: Black is a Colour", "Charlotte Salomon", "Norbert Kricke", "Max Ernst", "Sigmar Polke", "German Fashion Photography: 1945-1995", "Erwin Bohatsch", "Günter Grass", "Günther Uecker", "Jochen Proehl", "WOLS" and "Distance and Near: Bernd & Hilla Becher, Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Axel Hütte, Simone Nieweg, Thomas Ruff, Jörg Sasse, Thomas Struth, Petra Wunderlich ".

Milli Reasürans Art Gallery
Tesvikiye Street 43-57 Tesvikiye - Istanbul

Telephone :
00 90 - 0212 230 19 76
00 90 - 0212 219 62 58

email: sanatgalerisi@millireasuranssanatgalerisi.com

open every day from 11 a.m. to 6.30 p.m.
except sunday and monday

"Conscious, Simple - Consciously Simple" German Industrial Design exhibition is held between May 15-June 15, 2008 at Millî Reasürans Art Gallery

The fact that simplicity is not necessarily easy to create all too often impinges on our consciousness: terms like 'video' and 'computer' signify all sorts of imaginable complications which develop from our dealing with 'simple' implements and appliances. Yet we do not have to dive into the enigmatic labyrinths of electronic wonder-worlds in order to illustrate the complexity of this phenomenon. Even the simplest, craft-dominated, activities make us aware of the cussedness of the term 'simplicity'. The same is true for the design and con-struction/production of first prototypes, for the serial production, sales and disposal of furniture. Even the simplest stool - with its structural design, materiality, functionality and cultural context - reveals a whole panorama of design problems which can be solved only with the utmost care.
Thus the exhibition 'conscious, simple - consciously simple. The Emergence of an Alternative Product Culture' cannot attempt to present ready-made answers in the sense of 'tried and tested' alternatives. Instead, we would like to illustrate the different demands on and notions of a 'conscious simplicity' in showing the initial development stages from conceptual approach to actual design, and discuss the various proposals with their controversial emphases on individual aspects.
In this exhibition we are documenting a total of over 60 designs that, to us, meet the essential criteria for furniture designs, namely their 'consciously simple' quality. These comprise works which were either newly assembled from available parts and semi-finished products, or constructed following a strictly additive principle, or else made from a single material - wood, steel, textile - and will therefore cause no unusual environmental stress when disposed of.

A further factor, and for the product's users probably the decisive one, is the question of handling and function. Perhaps it is precisely in this area - on the level of inner and outer function - that the dimension of simplicity is revealed, i.e. in the directly experienced, and not only suggested, easy serviceability of a piece of furniture in relation to the structural background which made this ease possible. The mechanical qualities lead to another question though: in which mobile contexts are such mechanisms appropriate? Which chairs, which tables will people want to fold away or push aside when and how? Has not many an idea run into
the danger of mutating into a playful gadget and/or fascinating presentation gag? The objects on show, and most especially the juxtaposition of opposing specific approaches, will hopefully also initiate a discussion of such questions.
Just exactly this will be the point in years to come:
to define these fundamental facts more clearly, to integrate material and technical process standards, and to reconcile them with the emotional and narrative aspects of design.

Volker Albus
Ursula Zeller
Monika Winkler