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, Mustafa Okan.

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 and Baumschlager Eberle 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, Itinerarios Afines : Alberto Garcia- Alix, Bleda& Rosa, Ferran Frexia, Cristobal Hara, Ouka Lee, Chema Madoz, Angel Marcos, Xavier Ribas, Cristina Garcia Rodero, Javier Vallhonrat. "

Milli Reasürans Art Gallery
Maçka Cad. No: 35
Teşvikiye - Şişli 34367 İstanbul

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

The artist on the prowl...

the world as his territory

The entire world is the workplace of the .photo-journalist. The Institut fur Ausiandsbe7iehungen has already mounted three exhibitions devoted to photo-journalism, a special branch of photography. Our scries of exhibitions entitled "Fotografie in deutschen Zeilschriften" ('Photography in German Magazines'] delineated the development of photo-journalism from ils origins up to the 'eighties of the 20th century. The present project with the title "The World as One" represents the chronological progression of this theme into the last decade, which, after a long intermission allowed us once more to see East and West as a totality, following the fall of the Iron Curtain and the re-integration of Europe. When the inter-German border opened in 198&, and in the following year the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany, tfifi European dichotomy between East and West seemed, for one illusory moment, to dissolve and be replaced by historic solidarity and cultural unity. The photography presented here reflects, like no other medium, the uniqueness of this historic situation, while at the same time paying special attention to its social, political, and cultural consequences. The objective of our project is to reveal this specific quality of 'nineties photography, The contributing artists view their social environments from different perspectives and choose to present different aspects of thesei landscape, architecture, portrait, modern history, society. Each documents, in his Or her own unique way, those aspects of their individual realities that interest them most.

We tend to imagine photo-journalists as dashing adventurers hung with cameras and equipment, who scurry from one country to another and from one catastrophe to another in search of new sensations. However, sensational pictorial reports with upsetting, even shocking images, were not our fundamental concern, We were much more concerned to show sensitive pictorial reporting, another strong tradition in Germany, In the case of some photographers of the younger generation this approach has led to the development of an independent pictorial style. They have devoted remarkable energy in their work to intensifying the aesthetic and psychological impact of pictorial images.

The serial works and the current research of our young artists places them in the proximity of photo-reporters, to whom they do in part belong, especially when they produce for magazines. The artistic ambition of their projects, and their high aesthetic standard, however, point away from mere photo-reporting. One common factor they all strive towards is innovative forms of articulation, which they attempt to uphold far beyond the mere reporting of current events. Mostly, they had already found their 'own' themes, before they agreed to these commissions. They are also not agents in the narrow sense, but specialists in 3 specific subject matter and a particular pictorial idiom, who put their own special stamp on a report with their individual pictorial expression, as an author would with his text. Our exhibition is dedicated to the artists presented here who do not differentiate between other people's commissions and their own work; who show the world as one, over and above the scope of their commissions, as it is, open to reality; whose personal involvement encourages reflection rather than tries to shock; and who do not expose, but rather respect the dignity of the sitters, both in letter and spirit. Markus Rasp, the former Art Director of the magazine of the "Siiddeutsche Zeitung", first comprehensively presented this exciting "Contemporary German Photography" of the 'nineties in a book in 1997, to which UIf Erdmann Ziegler contributed the foreword The ensuing exhibition in the same year (with Burkhard Riem-schneider and Tim Neuger as the prime movers} was also the inspiration for the present exhibition project.

We would like to thank all the artists for their enthusiasm for the idea, together with the curator, UIf Erdmann Ziegler, for his expert selection. His commitment and feeling for outstanding work guided him securely through the vast amount of material and elicited only the best from all involved. He presents two complimentary forms of presentation together in this exhibition: namely the photographic originals and the published photography.