We’ve done our best to compile events we’re aware of. If you think we’ve forgotten one or want to see your event featured, please send an e-mail (with English press info) to events@yabangee.com.
Yabangee’s Weekend Picks:
Saturday: Bob Marley Birthday Celebration @ Babylon Bomonti – Sometimes a bit of reggae can cure all your woes. Celebrate the birthday of a true legend with a bit of help from Ras Memo, Bosphoroots Reggae Band, Sattas, and Da-Frogg Eyez.
Saturday: The Wanton Bishop @ Salon IKSV – “The band was formed by Nader and Eddy who depend their friendship to a couple of drinks they had after they accidentally met in the middle of a bar fight in Beirut. Recognised as one of the major figures behind the contemporary rise of garage rock together with The Black Keys and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and as one of the most important contemporary music bands in the Middle East.”
Saturday: Home Compost Workshop – “Come learn from permaculturalist Shaul Shahman from Ek Biç Ye Iç practical ways to fit composting into urban life.”
Sunday: Fire of Anatolia @ Bostancı Gösteri Merkezi – “A synthesis of hundreds of folk dances and music from different regions, Fire of Anatolia is a unique project whose source is Anatolia’s ancient mythological and cultural history. Produced by Mustafa Erdoğan, the group hopes to introduce the world to the fire that arises from the ancient Anatolian mosaic of love, cultural history and peace.”
Friday:
Ayhan Sicimoğlu & Latin All-Stars @ Babylon Bomonti – “A night full of music awaits you with lots of Bolero, Salsa, Cha-Cha and some special surprises. Mambo, Cha-Cha, Salsa and Turkish covers will fill the air, and we promise you that you will not be able to stop yourself from dancing! Ayhan Sicimoğlu & Friends invite you to Babylon for a night of endless dance and fun.”
Starting: Museum of Broken Relationships @ Istinye Park – “The art project describes itself as a “physical and virtual public space created with the sole purpose of treasuring and sharing heartbreak stories and symbolic possessions”. It hopes to cultivate a global empathetic journey, all while challenging our predisposed ideas about heritage.”
Tantana Records: The Ringo Jets (Kozmik Yıkım Opening) @ Salon IKSV – The mysterious castle of Turkey’s fantastic rock’n’roll talents, Tantana Records is inviting you to a long-missed rock night featuring noisy guitar sounds of Ringo Jets and Kozmik Yıkım.
Beatgate Presents: Teenage Mutants X Sezer Uysal @ indigo
Groove Therapy @ Machine – Alper Ünlenen (Audio Therapist); Fatih Koşar (Groowee); Andre Demir
Barlas Tan Özemek @ Bant Mag. Havuz
Saturday:
LOKALİZE: Büyük Ev Ablukada – Ay Şuram Ağrıyo @ Zorlu PSM – “Büyük Ev Ablukada, an Istanbul-based band that has gained acclaim with its sound, lyrics and authentic style, while being a pioneer to a new musical movement that is yet to be named, will be at the #studio on February 4th with an acoustic performance, as a part of their concert series called “Ay Şuram Ağrıyo”!”
WHY SO TECHY w/ Cure-Shot, Gun-Han, Gokberk, Alper Unlenen at GLOW
Ending: “EU 48/6/N” @ Elgiz Museum – “Rahmi Aksungur is a highly influential sculptor and academician whose body of work has made a significant contribution to contemporary sculpture in Turkey.”
Jeton Records presents Ambivalent (Kompakt, Octopus)
Lehar – All Through The Night Tour 2017 @ indigo – “In Early 2017, Lehar is hosting his very own club series, capturing the DJ booth from start to finish. One artist, one night, one idea: A night of dreaming and a night of dancing have one major aspect in common – only if they are in a complete flow, uninterrupted, they can unfold their strongest effect. Lehar wanted to make others experience this idea and to share his love for the music. All Through The Night can bring you anywhere from heartfelt Electronica over spirited House tunes to straight-up Techno turmoil – mixed in one hypnotic blend, creating one fluent motion.”
Future Rabbit Showcase @ Machine
Sunday:
Ending: Rania Stephan @ Alt Art Space – “Alt Art Space presents films and photographs by Rania Stephan. For her first solo show in Turkey, Stephan will show her major body of work on the life and times of Egyptian movie star Soad Hosni, 1943-2001. Stephan addresses representations of women and the impact of images on shaping societies through reflections on the legacy of Hosni and her mysterious death in London in 2001.”
Sunday Matinee & Lilly Birthday Bash @ AU Terrasse – “Lilly invites for Glitter & Love and a bunch of good Music by 7-Erhan and Mr. & Mrs. Kazan! Come together wild hearts: It’s Sunday Matinee and 27en Ginger Years!”
Poster-iti • Sabotage • The Ayılar @ Peyote
Multi-Day Events:
Fermented Drink Festiva @ Marjo Karaköy
Ongoing:
“300 Issues / 27 Years / 1 Magazine / Arredamento” @ SALT Galata – “One of the longest living design and architecture magazines in Turkey, the 27-year life of Arredamento is visualized as an exhibition at SALT Galata. Installed in the Open Archive on the third floor, the exhibition brings together 300 issues of the magazine. Originally published as a popular design journal, over time Arredamento transformed itself into an architectural magazine with a theoretical slant, and managed to subsist without sponsorship or institutional support.”
“Not Seeing Anything” @ Alt Art Space – “Alt Art Spaces presents Not Seeing Anything, a group show of emerging artists with Özgür Atlagan, Luna Ece Bal, Berk Çakmakçı, Alexandra Howland, Burak Kabadayı and Serra Tansel. Not Seeing Anything investigates the personal, cultural and political impulse to cover-up or conceal, as well as the position of the witness. The exhibition space will function as a shared studio-workspace, part-time residency, for several of the artists during the four weeks leading up to the exhibition. Not Seeing Anything will be accompanied by a zine.”
“f r a g m e n t e d f r a g m e n t f r a g m e n t s” @ Pi Artworks Istanbul – “The installation by London based fibre artist Carys Briggs incorporates empirical methods of analysis, laying them over abstract representations in a constructed world of fragments. By reducing familiar forms to vague representations on layers of fabrics, whose textures are both surface and structure, she positions the viewer as a foreigner searching for associations -wandering through an environment that is between memory and discovery.”
“Born with a Silver Spoon in Mouth” @ Gaia Gallery – “Özmenoğlu faces the male-dominant society codes as a female artist in her first individual exhibition in 2017, ’Babam Sağolsun’. She says ‘’Just like in my previous works, (Senin Annen Bir Melekti, Cumaya Gittim Gelicem, Seni Sevmeyen Ölsün) I was inspired by a local idiom again. This time, I reveal a situation analysis.’’ And adds ‘’With this popular expression to which I assign the meanings of not only an opposition also a confrontation, I wanted the audience to think and ask themselves again and again in the society they live in.”
“Anatomy of Things” @ Pg Art Gallery – “Yonca Karakaş focuses on improvement of the human mind and dogmatic ideas at her first solo exhibition titled ‘Anatomy of Things’. The show that she re-defines the perception of ‘reality’ will be on view between January 21 – February 25, 2017 at Pg Art Gallery. Karakaş builds a new universe by the objects she uses, the spaces and characters she creates.”
“Common Field” @ Gallery Ilayda – “In his paintings , in an unnamed time , which are standing in the middle of the void, the core families, intervening people and loneliness themes are being processed intensively. The new paintings, prepared for the ”common field”, are built on the spine of pattern and created on top of intense layers of paint. Large-scale portraits and crowded compositions are mostly on display in the exhibition.”
“Observed Truths” @ Mixer – “Our systems of perception is programmed to render what is unperceivable to the perceivable. Considering that the concepts concerning measures and units are made up of self-referential realities, humans position themselves in between a thin line separating the relativity and the necessity of the concept of reality.”
“After the 20th” @ Mixer – “The Project, coming out of the recording of the production process of biologic coal in a forest village located in Istanbul’s northwest, is based on a single tree. The artist, in his analogy fictionalized from the story of a single tree, reveals the stages of representation.”
“An Astronomical Determination of the Distance Between Two Cities” @ Zilberman Gallery – “In a two-part project, Amin looks at the historical paradigms of technology and urban development in relation to contemporary migratory paths. By employing cartographic research and landscape surveillance, Amin critiques the predatory view of landscape and the exoticization of women’s bodies in relation to geography. The project proposes a visual allegory focusing on architectural fragments and sexual desires to challenge colonial histories.”
“MIRROR” @ Dirimart Dolapdere – “Placing the theory of memory at the core of his practice, Sarkis is introducing a layered critical view to today’s social and political issues by inviting various witnesses from the history to the exhibition. The works transform the art’s faculty of bringing the traces of the past to the present into the competence in conjuring up the future through artistic production.”
“Writing Remains” @ Zilberman Gallery – “Beler’s deep engagement with literature is manifest in her project exhibition, Writing Remains, in that the artist’s process includes thinking about the multitude of meanings in artistic practice, inspired by asemic writing. It is well established that taking notes by hand on a text while reading improves memory retention. Beler, who always uses this method while working, has been producing asemic writing, discovering the difficulty of writing credible ‘fake’ writing. The work included in the exhibition, ‘sentence’, is the first result of this effort to push the boundaries of credibility.”
“When Did We Stop Playing?” @ Anna Laudel Contemporary – “Through framing the question ‘When did we stop playing?’, the exhibition aims to explore the great, universal game of life in our shared, contemporary existence.”
“Cold Front from the Balkans” @ Pera Museum – “The exhibition focuses on different generations of artists and art groups from the Balkan region. The exhibition avoids the usual unflattering political connotations the region’s name inevitably brings up but instead focuses on a natural phenomenon — the wind.”
“Wanderer on the Sea of Light” @ Pera Museum – “French artist Félix Ziem is one of the most original landscape painters of the 19th century. The exhibition Wanderer on the Sea of Light presents Ziem as an artist who left his mark on 19th century painting and who is mostly known for his paintings of Istanbul and Venice, where the city and the sea are intertwined.”
Looking for more events happening in Istanbul? Keep up with our What’s On section.
