Events and Places
Places
City of Berlin
This year’s edition of the ‘New Agora’ Symposion is entitled ‘Muslims: Partners in Dialogue’. We chose Berlin as the city where resides a large Muslim community. Due to this, it creates a proper context for the reflection on the co-existence and dialogue with the Muslim world.
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City of Potsdam
Potsdam's cultural landscape is one of the most beautiful of Germany's world heritage sites and, when combined with Berlin, is also the largest. The ensemble effect of the parks is truly unique; the system was created over centuries by order of Prussian electors, kings and emperors. Famous artists and structure and landscape architects left their mark on the complete artistic creation of gardens and buildings, interwoven in a diverse fashion with pathways and vantage points.
Since 1990,UNESCO granted large areas of Potsdam World Heritage status, including Sanssouci park, Neuer Garten, Babelsberg and Glienicke with their palaces, the Pfaueninsel (Peacock Island), and also the Sacrow palace and park, along with its Church of the Redeemer. Fourteen other listed areas were added to Potsdam's World Cultural Heritage list in 1999. Lindstedt palace and park, the Russian colony Alexandrowka, and the Pfingstberg with the Belvedere and the Sternwarte Astronomical Observatory in the Babelsberg park were among them.
More on Potsdam
The House of Brandenburg-Prussian History
New Agora Symposion will this year take place at the House of Brandenburg-Prussian History. The host institution is settled in the central part of Potsdam.
Das Haus / The HBPG
The Haus der Brandenburgisch-Preußischen Geschichte (HBPG – The House of Brandenburg-Prussian History) is an arena for active, critical and open examination and discussion of the history of Brandenburg and Prussia. The House is the focal point of the “Forum Neuer Markt” (New Market Place Forum), which brings together science and research, tourism and culture.
On the ground- floor the permanent exhibition, documenting the history of Brandenburg-Prussia and Potsdam, is the essential first port of call for all visitors to Potsdam. On the upper floor special areas are available for temporary guest exhibitions. These can be used by either HBPG’s partner in the venture, the Potsdam-Museum, or any of the other museums in Brandenburg. A vaulted hall on the ground- floor has been transformed into a multipurpose function room. This room, together with the conference room on the upper floor, is available for rent, providing accommodation for a maximum of 150 people.
The prevailing theme for the work of the HBPG is communication, cooperation and coordination. In its role of providing a forum, the House is open to all events concentrating on examining history. In this respect the HBPG offers its facilities to museums and collections, as well as regional research organisations, to present their own projects. It is a venue for information, discussion and openness. A place to meet, chat and have fun. The HBPG would like to inspire the entire Federal State of Brandenburg through this venture, and even become active outside of Potsdam.
The Haus der Brandenburgisch-Preußischen Geschichte has the legal form of a non-profit making GmbH (Plc). The members of the GmbH are the Federal State of Brandenburg and the Federal State Capital, Potsdam.
Das Haus / der Kutschstall
The Kutsch (pferde) stall (coach horse stables) was erected from 1787 to 1790 in accordance with the designs of court master builder, Andreas Ludwig Krüger.
The Kutschstall belonged to the court of the Potsdam Palace right up until the abdication of the emperor in 1918. It originally housed the police horses, and then with the emergence of motorization, the building was used as a garage and workshop.
In 1940 a fruit and vegetable market was set up here. The roof timbers and upper floor, which were destroyed by fire in 1945, were rebuilt after the war, and the building was used first as a car workshop, and then for a wholesale “Fruit, vegetable and edible potato” business, right into the 1990’s.
In 1997 the Federal State of Brandenburg took over ownership of the property from the Federal Government, under the provision that a Haus der Brandenburgisch-Preußischen Geschichte (House of Brandenburg-Prussian History) was to be established there. The House opened in December 2003.
The permanent exhibition
The region and its people
Tales from Brandenburg-Prussia>
Brandenburg: a region of water, woodland and sand. Influenced by the interplay of these elements, the people living between the Elbe and the Oder have shaped and formed the culture of this region over the centuries. From the boatman to the huntsman. From the asparagus cultivator to the rowing sportsman. From the rural cucumber grower in the Spreewald to the landscape artist.
The exhibition documents an exciting journey spanning 900 years of the region’s history. It uncovers secret places and encounters fascinating personalities. It recounts exciting tales, reports on war and peace, crises and catastrophes. It poses critical questions concerning the past, present and future of Brandenburg. It clearly shows how the interwoven history of Prussia and the Hohenzollern family cannot be separated from the history of Brandenburg, and the particular role the royal seat of Potsdam played in this history.
There are original artefacts, photographs, films, information points and interactive multi media kiosks. The exhibition is not just about imparting valuable knowledge and opening up new perspectives on an old regional culture. It is also entertaining and lots of fun.
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Kongresshotel Potsdam
The participants of New Agora Symposion in Berlin will be accommodated during their stay in Kongresshotel Potsdam. The hotel is situated at the airship port in the western part of Potsdam, in the attractive forest and lake scenery of the “Pirschheide” and directly on the shores of Lake Templin. It is unique due to its hitorical location. Count Zeppelin had one of his best ideas at the airship hangar in Potsdam – the Congress Hotel Potsdam on Lake Templin too. That’s why it landed directly on the shores of Lake Templin, surrounded by the enchanting forest and lake scenery of the „Pirschheide”.
A wealth of glass and natural light make the Congress Hotel Potsdam on Lake Templin a place with unusual perspectives. Its defining characteristic is transparency. This applies to the structure itself, as well as the spirit of events that transpire within. It is clear from the start that this is a place where clear minds can always find new ideas.
„Viktoria Luise“, „Graf Zeppelin“ or „Nordstern“ are the names of the futuristic buildings - like the airships that were built or serviced here nearly a century ago. They are a fitting tribute to the innovative spirit of a historical location that has once again set its sights on the future. The Congress Hotel Potsdam on Lake Templin is an educational institution, conference and congress centre, a seminar hotel, a meeting point and a place of communication. „Our vision is to develop this location into a sports, congress and event hotel“, says Manager Jutta Braun.
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Events
Concert of the “Węgajty” Theatre Schola
The "Węgajty" Theatre Schola (since 1994) is an international team composed of singers, actors, musicians, visual artists and scholars of different humanistic fields, whose activity is focused on the reconstruction of mediaeval liturgical dramas, musical and theatrical presentations, researching the connections between drama and liturgy, traditions of the sacred chant and archaic performance practices.
• presentations
medieval liturgical dramas and mystery plays, concert programs (ancient religious songs of Europe, Gregorian chant), musical spectacles;
• research
Gregorian chant, manuscripts, history of theatre and liturgy, ethnomusicology, traditional dances and rituals;
• expeditions and cultural anthropology
culture of traditional communities in Poland, Sardinia, Corsica, Ukraine, Russia, Greece, Croatia, Lithuania, Hungary and Romania;
• liturgies
participation (as a liturgical choir) in liturgies of Holy Mass and Canonical Hours of the whole ecclesiastical year;
• training and animation
festivals, feasts of places, meetings, seminars, dance-houses, theme-workshops.
The Orient and the Occident - Concert
Dialogue of mediaeval European music of the XI to XIII century with Persian music.
In contemporary studies of the performance and forms of mediaeval music, we inevitably encounter similarities with traditional music from the Middle East; Arabic, Iranian and Turkish. The modality of mediaeval music is closer to the aesthetic feeling of the above-mentioned cultures than of the present-day Europe.
We invited representatives of the Middle Eastern culture – great Persian musicians living in Warsaw – Mohammad Rasouli and Mohssen Hosseini. The first rehearsals confirmed what we had suspected. Music of the crusades, from the XII and XIII centuries – like the Gregorian and Byzantine chants, songs of the troubadours, and trouvères, and minnesingers, or the laudas of Saint Francis – operates within a cognate musical language, modality of tones and poetical rhythms. The only difference nowadays is that oriental music remains in connection with ancient canons; it has kept all the abilities (bound to it?), like improvisation, when we are forced to reconstruct those elements tiresomely.
Historical facts help us understand the familiarity.
Starting from the VII century, Arabs gain control over the Middle East, they assimilate the Hellenic culture in its Christian-Byzantine form and learn about the traditions of the Eastern Churches – monophysism and chaldeas; of the Jacobites, the Copts, and of the Nestorians. From the chants they take the modal system called oktoechos, used in both the Greek and the Middle East antiquity. It operates also in the western part of the Mediterranean, in the chants of the pre-Gregorian Latin Church.
Already from the VIII century,Muslims rule over a huge multicultural and multiconfessional area. Their culture blooms and in times of the crusades – under the Turkish rule – it comes to its ripeness, (finding way in poetry and music?), shaped under the influence of the strong mystical-philosophical Sufi movement surpassing the boundaries of a religion only. Its greatest representative was Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, Persian priest, poet, and musician, living in the early XIII century. As a child, due to the Mongolian raids, he emigrated with his parents from the Persian-Tajik borderland (the land of Chorasan) to the Anatolian city of Konia held by the Saracens, who had defeated the Byzantines. During his life, the majority of city inhabitants where Christians. Not far south and east from Konia where the borders of two crusader states.
It is hard to tell today how the Sufi mystical love poetry exactly came to Provence; was it from the Bogomils and the Cathars or maybe from the nearby Saracen countries through Spain? Nevertheless it’s cognition with the poetry of the troubadours, trouvères, and minnesingers is unequivocal. Many of the troubadours participated in the crusades, like the fabulous King Richard the Lionheart (qalb el-nimr in Arabic which is a symbolic Sufi cipher) whose brother John was accused of collusion with the Saracen’s Morocco.
Also the first lauda created by Saint Francis – Il Cantico del Sole (Song of the Sun) – the melody of which, unfortunately, didn’t preserve, reveals a curious cognition with the teachings of Sufi masters. We only know that Saint Francis participated in the fifth crusade, received with honors by the Sultan Malik Al-Kamil in his camp on the banks of Nile near the besieged stronghold Damietta.
Ten years later, the same Sultan, by the treaty of Jaffa, handed on the desired Jerusalem without shedding a single drop of blood for ten years of his rule to the leader of the sixth crusade – Caesar Frederic II. Raised in Norman Sicily – remaining under the Arabian-Byzantine influences – this European ruler as the King of Jerusalem organizes a refined court full of artists, musicians and sages. Also under the influence of those events a German minnesinger, Walther von der Vogelweide, created his famous piece – Palaestinalied (Song of the Palestine).
Concert programme:
• Char Mezrab – a classical Persian composition in the Mahur modus
• Shabe vasl – a classical Persian composition in the Mahur modus with a poem by Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī
• Kyrie with the Rex inmense trope, Codex Calixtinus, Santiago de Compostela (XII century)
Codex Calixtinus was named after Pope Calixt, the initiator a book containing all the services with songs reserved for the celevration of the Saint Jacob Feast in the most important pilgrimage centre of mediaeval Europe – Santiago de Compostela
• Popule meus – a Gregorian chant
The Improperia of the Great Friday are about God ‘complaining’ about his unfaithful people and are sang during the Adoration of the Holy Cross. The text is of Syrian origin and is connected to the apocrypha called the Book of Ezra. It was known from the IV century in the Galican, Mozarabic and Old Roman rites. Stanzas are divided into so called trishagion taken from the Byzantine tradition..
• Agar mastam – a classical Persian composition in the Mahur modus with a poem by Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī.
• Madonna Santa Maria – Saint Francis’ lauda from the collection of Laudario di Cortona (XIII c.)
• Improvisation of Persian music in the Shur modus
• Fortz chausa es, Planh – a lamentation of the Provence troubadour, Gaucelm Faidit (ca. 1170-1205), over the death of his companion, King Richard the Lionheart
• Pishdaramad – and improvisation of Persian music in the Shushtari modus
• Oj puszczu ja konyczeńka w sadu – a Ucrainian farewell song on lyre of a cossac departing for war
• Improvisation of Persian music in the Shur modus
• Jhesu Crist – a prayer of the last troubadour of the Provence, Guiraud Riquier (around 1230-1300).
• Nu alrest lebe ich – Palaestinalied (ca. 1228), the song of the Holy Land by Walther von der Vogelweide
• Morde budam, zende shodam (I was dead and here I live) a poem by Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī and an improvisation
• Mastan - a classical Persian composition in the Mahur modus with the poem by Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī
• Ba man sanama - a classical Persian composition in the Chahargah modus with a poem by Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī
Performers – “Węgajty” Theatre Schola: Maciej Kaziński, Johann Wolfgang Niklaus, Serhii Petrychenko; guests: Mohssen Hosseini and Mohammad Rasouli.
Instruments: ney, tar, tombak, daf, hurdy gurdy, fidel, kemancheh, koboz, ud.
More on the "Węgajty" Theatre Schola
Tour in the Sehitlik Mosque in Neukölln, Berlin
The Sehitlik Mosque
The Sehitlik Mosque at Columbiadamm in the Berlin’s district, Neukölln has been perceived as a Berlin mosque since its opening. It was built on the old Turkish cemetery after which it took the name (Sehitlik – “Cemetery of the Martyrs”).
It continues the Islamic tradition in Berlin, which has begun already in the 1797, long time before the arrival of the first guest workers in the 60’s.
The whole complex corresponds with a model of the classical Ottoman architecture strongly influenced by its famous architect, Mimar Sinan. The Berliner Mosque is designed as a community and cultural centre.
The Sehitlik Mosque belongs to the later classical Ottoman architecture of the 16th and 17th Century. The Ottoman architecture reached its classical peak with the works of Mimar Sinan. It lasted until the beginning of the 18th century when the European influences on the Ottoman architecture became stronger. Famous mosques of the classical period include Sehzade Camii, Süleymaniye Camii, Selimiye Camii.
Technique
The main focus of the interior decoration is laid on the harmony of mixed use of ceramic and marble. Such use of the materials in the classical period has never been seen before. Therefore the Mosque is not a repetition of any other but a sign of new design possibilities to come.
Art
All materials such as wood and marble have been prepared and incorporated with great care and effort. The plates with the names of Allah, Mohammed, Ebu Bakr, Omar, Othman, Ali, Hasan, Hüsseyin are the transitional elements.
The Muqarnas placed in the lower layer, are also transitional elements that provide the aesthetic connection between small domes and outside walls. Muqarna is a type of a corbel used as a decorative device in traditional Arabic and Persian Architecture. Muqarnas has a form of small pointed niches, stacked in tiers projecting beyond those below and can be constructed out of brick, stone, stucco or wood.
On the main dome there are – following the tradition – the verses of Ihlas-i Serif. The writings were made with 23 carat gold decoration. Usually the colour of the background is cobalt blue. Here the dark green was selected, which was very often used in the mosques in the earlier period. The main colours are white, cobalt blue, iron orange, yellow, red, and ochre. Other colours are a mixture of these primary colours.
Hüseyin Kutlu, whose teacher was the famous Hamid Aytaç, made the calligraphy of the mosque. The painting was designed by Semih Irtes on the site, adapted to the walls and domes, and then painted.
Short history of the Cementary at the Sehitlik Mosque
The first resident ambassador of the Ottoman Empire under the rule of Sultan Selim III was Ali Aziz Efendi. He came to Berlin on the 3rd of June 1797 during the reign of King Frederick William III. He died in October 1798 and was buried in Berlin.
King Friedrich Wilhelm III bought the property in today’s Urban Strasse in Tempelhof and presented it as a gift for the funeral of Ali Efendi. During the French occupation, the cemetery was forgotten and lost. On the maps from 1834 it was not even marked.
In 1836 a farmer accidentally discovered the graves. The king allowed to restore the cemetery and its surroundings. In 1839 the ambassador Katib Rahmi Efendi was buried there. Due to an expansion of a former military camp the cemetery was relocated to the present area. In December 1866 the corpses were buried in a religious ceremony at the new site. To commemorate the Ottomans buried there Padishah Aziz ordered to build a monument. In 1921 about 700 square metres of land were purchased and thus the cemetery grew larger. Also the last Ottoman Ambassador Sukru Hafiz Efendi was buried there.
Currently, the area of the cemetery is approximately 2550 square metres big and it is owned by the Turkish Ministry of Defence. During the I World War, some Turkish soldiers were sent to Germany for treatment. The soldiers who died of wounds were buried there. This was the reason for the designation of the cemetery as “Cemetery of the Martyrs”. Right now, from about 20 years due to the lack of space there are funeral limitations. The deceased are transferred to Turkey or buried in the Muslim cemetery in Spandau.
More on the Sehitlik Mosque in Berlin
The Edge of Heaven by Fatih Akin
The Edge of Heaven (original title: Auf der anderen Seite, Turkish: Yaşamın Kıyısında) is a 2007 Turkish-German film written and directed by Fatih Akın. The film won the Prix du scénario at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.
The Edge of Heaven is played out in Turkey and Germany. The characters travel between these countries and so travel through their own lives. Akın tells the story in calm pictures, unagitated and slow-paced. The emotional key to the film is death which is faced by each protagonist in a different way. Thus those initially uncommunicative people slowly begin to uncover themselves.
Plot
Nejat seems disapproving about his widower father Ali’s choice of prostitute Yeter for a live-in girlfriend. But he grows fond of her when he discovers she sends money home to Turkey for her daughter’s university studies. Yeter’s sudden death distances father and son. Nejat travels to Istanbul to search for Yeter’s daughter Ayten. Political activist Ayten has fled the Turkish police and is already in Germany. She is befriended by a young woman, Lotte, who invites rebellious Ayten to stay in her home, a gesture not particularly pleasing to her conservative mother Susanne. When Ayten is arrested and her asylum plea is denied, she is deported and imprisoned in Turkey. Lotte travels to Turkey, where she gets caught up in the seemingly hopeless situation of freeing Ayten.
Comments on the movie by Fatih Akin
MY HOMEWORK
Filmmaking is a big part of my life, but it pales next to issues like birth, love and death. To really grow up, I felt I had to make three films. Call it a trilogy if you want to, but it’s basically three films that belong together because of their themes of love, death and evil. Head-on was about love. The Edge of Heaven is about death. Death in the sense of every death is a birth. Like both death and birth open doors to other dimensions. With The Edge of Heaven, I feel like I’m reaching some other level, but something is still missing that will be in the third film about evil. I just feel like I have to tell something to the end. These three films are kind of my homework, then I can move on. Maybe move on to genre films, film noir, western, even horror.
SHOOTING IN TURKEY
I finally started shooting on May 1, 2006. The Edge of Heaven was shot in Germany – Bremen and Hamburg, and in Turkey – Istanbul, the Black Sea Coast and Trabzon. The shoot lasted about 10 weeks. For a filmmaker, Turkey is a great place to shoot. Shooting in Germany is much less interesting. It can be attractive, but you have to look hard or create it. The light is extraordinary in Turkey because of its geographic position. For me, shooting in Istanbul is like shooting in New York. They’re both attractive and cosmopolitan. Each city is a megalopolis. I love to shoot in cities. I’m a big city child. It’s what I know. In The Edge of Heaven, the city of Istanbul is actually a character. Since she doesn’t speak the language, foreigner Lotte becomes lost as she confronts Istanbul. But I also wanted to break the urban image with scenes in the countryside and the coast.
IN BETWEEN TWO CULTURES
I have this Turkish background and I have this German background. I was born in Germany, but I’m in between the two cultures. Educated in Europe, but also raised in Turkish by my parents. Turkish culture has always been a part of my life. I traveled to Turkey with my family every summer since I was a kid. Since I’m in between these two cultures, it’s natural that my films are in between, too.
LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH TURKEY
I have this love-hate relationship with Turkey, a very complicated relationship. I became much more interested in Turkey after I finished school in 1995. I decided to make my first short film there, Weed in 1996. I saw another face of Turkey and I became more and more fascinated. I became more Turkish. With every meter of film I shoot in Turkey, I try to understand the country more and more. But the more I understand it, the more it makes me sad. I hate the politics, the nationalism. Look at what is happening in that country. History repeating itself. The same mistakes again and again. I love that country, but shooting in Turkey takes a lot of energy, tears and blood.
EDUCATION CAN SAVE THE WORLD
Literacy, education, plays a profound role in The Edge of Heaven. A book is a key image in the conflict between Nejat and his father. Which book to show? It was a very difficult decision for me. I didn’t want Siddartha or The Hobbit or anything too full of some parallel meaning. So I thought I would advertise my friend’s fantastic book. I chose Die Tochter des Schmieds (The Blacksmith’s Daughter) by Selim Ozdogan. In regards to the film, the key element is about reading. Reading stands for education. And education is the only thing that can save the world.
AM I POLITICAL?
I want to change the world - am I political? My film hopes the world will change – is it political? Probably more philosophical, but I think everything is political in today’s world. In the times we live in, I think it’s impossible to separate life and politics and art. I believe in the stuff I believe in, but I might change my mind tomorrow. I try not to be dogmatic. Whatever people believe in – religion or politics – everything has limits, everything heads in one direction. I wanted to make a film about going to the other side of all that, going beyond all that. I tried to make this film with some distance, as a viewer from the outside. But it didn’t seem to be possible. Sometimes it’s not the head which directs. I guess it’s a part of me that’s much more irrational, like the heart.
GERMANY AND TURKEY
As Germans, Susanne and Lotte represent the European Union, while Ayten and Yeter represent Turkey. Everything that happens between them in The Edge of Heaven is representative of the relationship of those systems. I had some fun with the argument between Susanne and Ayten regarding the European Union. But where I stand is not the point. I wrote this dialogue based on what I have often heard from real people around me. By the end of the film, German Susanne and Turkish Ayten both experience a profound change in how they see and feel about things. In the bookstore scene at the end where they hug, I noticed a small detail only in the edit. Not far from the women, there are two small flags, one German, the other Turkish. My friend and partner, Andreas Thiel, who passed away during the last week of the shoot, put them there. This stands for something. I guess it’s also a film about the relationship between the two countries.
Fatih Akin
Fatih Akin was born in 1973 in Hamburg of Turkish parentage. He began studying Visual Communications at Hamburg's College of Fine Arts in 1994. His collaboration with Wueste Film also dates from this time. In 1995, he wrote and directed his first short feature, Sensin - You're The One! (Sensin - Du Bist Es!), which received the Audience Award at the Hamburg International Short Film Festival. His second short film, Weed (Getuerkt, 1996), received several national and international festival prizes. His first full length feature film, Short Sharp Shock (Kurz und schmerzlos, 1998) won the Bronze Leopard at Locarno and the Bavarian Film Award (Best Young Director) in 1998. His other films include: In July (Im Juli, 2000), Wir haben vergessen zurueckzukehren (2001), Solino (2002), the Berlinale Golden Bear-winner and winner of the German and European Film Awards Head-On (Gegen die Wand, 2003), and Crossing the Bridge - The Sound of Istanbul (2005).
Source: Official website of the movie
Exhibition tour at the Martin Gropius Bau:
Taswir – Pictorial Mappings of Islam and Modernity and Istanbul Modern Berlin
Taswir – Pictorial Mappings of Islam and Modernity is an exhibition mounted by the Berliner Festspiele in the Martin-Gropius-Bau that takes a contemporary look at Islamic forms of visual expression. The exhibition focuses on three major themes: Calligraphy, Ornament and Miniatures. It places specimens of classical Islamic art in the context of modern and contemporary output in the fields of graphics, drawing, painting, photography, video art, installation, sound and sculpture.
Calligraphy
The exhibition presents Islamic forms of writing primarily from a visual point of view and addresses the phenomena of writing, notation and movement. The emphasis is on the visual and performative aspects of writing as an art form in its own right. We will be showing classical exhibits of Koran manuscripts of the most diverse origins as well as Persian and Ottoman calligraphic sheets and sketch books dating from the 16th to the 19th centuries, which the exhibition contrasts with forms of artistic expression characteristic of European Modernism and contemporary artists from East and West, such as Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Maliheh Afnan, Etel Adnan, Wolfgang Laib, William Forsythe, Song Dong and Rebecca Horn.
Ornament
This section examines the basic geometrical figurations of ornamentation in architecture, interior decoration, and arts and crafts. Architectural drawings and textile patterns are displayed that reveal the cosmic, mathematical formal principle of the ornamental not only as a basic principle of architecture, but also as an ordering principle for society and state. The works of a number of critical contemporary artists, such as Mona Hatoum, Susan Hefuna, Parastou Forouhar and Hale Tenger, illuminate the ambivalence of hierarchy and order, perfection and power, symmetry and asymmetry, impotence and violence.
Imageries in miniatures and painting
The exhibition looks at the figurative imagery of Persian, Indian and Ottoman miniature painting in close association with poetry and literature, especially the great Persian epics about such famous pairs of lovers as Yusuf and Zulaykha, Layla and Majnun or Khusraw and Shirin. At the same time the imagery of the traditional Miraculous Journey of the Prophet and of Mogul painting indicates a migration of narrative forms that reveal biblical, Persian, Arabian and European influences, thus demonstrating the extreme openness of Islamic imagery.
Another section entitled Prophet and Portrait / Who is Afraid of Representation is devoted to the pictorial representation of Muhammad in Ottoman, Persian and Mogul book illustration in the light of contemporary works on the problem of the representability of the human face. The whole exhibition follows a poetic trajectory in which East and West, classical and contemporary trends, Islam and Modernism, come together in new ways. The curators create a vivid kaleidoscope of visual and acoustic references, different forms of artistic expression, and historical allusions. Following the Mnemosyne Atlas of the Hamburg art historian Aby Warburg, the exhibition shows traditional Persian, Arabian and Ottoman imagery against the background of contemporary artistic trends. It calls for a reconsideration of the practice of keeping “Orient” and “Occident” in watertight compartments while subjecting the roots of the traditional European view of the “West” to critical scrutiny.
Important national and international libraries and museums – such as the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, the British Museum and British Library in London, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, or the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon and the Islamic Museum SMB – have made precious objects of Islamic art available as loans.
Over thirty artists from the international art scene have agreed to take part in the exhibition by showing important works, some of them for the first time in Germany (as of June 2009).
Events connected with “Taswir – Pictorial Mappings of Islam and Modernity”
Organized by Ha’atelier – werkstatt für philosophie und kunst e.V. , a series of high-powered workshops will be held in the Lichthof of the Martin-Gropius-Bau for the duration of the exhibition under the title “The TASWIR Project: A Portable Visual Atlas”, in which more than thirty artists and curators, musicians, scholars and intellectuals from all over the world will discuss and expand on the topics raised by the exhibition in a kind of Madrasah or place of public learning. This will constitute an artistic commentary on the exhibition, an ephemeral “exhibition in the exhibition”, an exploration of roads to knowledge in which the public will take constant part and whose content will be continuously documented in the exhibition itself. The programme of events – “The TASWIR Project: A Portable Visual Atlas” – will be produced by Ha’atelier – werkstatt für philosophie und kunst e.V., generously funded by the Robert Bosch Foundation, the Allianz Cultural Foundation, the Verein für Bildung und Fortbildung, and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.
Official website of the exibition
Istanbul Modern Berlin
Works from 1928 to 2008 from the collections of the Istanbul Modern
An exhibition on the occasion of “Istanbul Next Wave. Simultaneity – Parallels – Opposites”
Istanbul Modern Berlin
Istanbul Modern Berlin is exhibiting eighty works that represent outstanding milestones in the development of modern Turkish art. These works have been drawn from the distinguished and comprehensive collection of the Istanbul Modern Museum of Art. The survey presents Istanbul’s current art production as part of the historical development of the twentieth century, including the controversial debate over Western modern art between 1920 and 1950, the emancipation of the artists’ own aesthetic positions from the 1960s to the 1980s, all the way to the internationally networked contemporary art scene of the past twenty years.
Istanbul Modern Berlin forms part of the Istanbul Next Wave exhibition series on the current art scene in the Turkish metropolis. This joint project by the city of Istanbul and the Academy of the Arts encompasses three exhibitions that can be seen in the Academy buildings on Pariser Platz and Hanseatenweg as well as in the Martin-Gropius-Bau. Istanbul Next Wave represents the climax of Berlin’s events marking the twentieth anniversary of the Berlin-Istanbul city partnership and marks the international kick-off to a programme with which Istanbul is presenting itself as the 2010 European Capital of Culture in cooperation with Kültür A.?.
Istanbul Modern Berlin provides the basis for the curatorial team’s efforts under the direction of Çetin Güzelhan to present Turkish art in a new way that will transcend the traditional cliché of “delayed modernity”. This modern movement, which reaches far back into the fifteenth century Ottoman Empire, has always found itself in an ambivalent dialogue with Western Europe. Caught between attraction and close exchange on the one side, and exclusion and confrontation on the other, an independent modern movement emerged that picked up speed after the founding of the young Turkish Republic by Kemal Pasha. But this movement, with its discontinuities, complex layers, cultural force and uniqueness, also laid the foundation for contemporary Turkish art and a post-modern society with an identity that is at once Islamic and modern.
Over the past centuries, Turkey has experienced an astounding development that has been characterised by a remarkable opening to the outside world. In the Martin-Gropius-Bau visitors will be able to see this rapid development in the visual arts from the early twentieth century to the present day.
Artists
Haluk Akakçe, 1970; Erol Akyavas, 1932–1999; Özdemir Altan, 1931; Avni Arbas, 1919–2003; Hale Asaf, 1905/1906–1938; Bedri Baykam, 1957; Ramazan Bayrakoglu, 1966; Aliye Berger, 1903–1974; Nurullah Berk, 1906–1982; Sabri Berkel, 1907–1993; Semiha Berksoy, 1910–2004; Ferruh Basaga, 1914; Bubi, 1956; Cihat Burak, 1915–1994; Ibrahim Çalli, 1882–1960; Ali Avni Celebi, 1904–1933; Taner Ceylan, 1967; Adnan Çoker, 1927; Cevat Dereli, 1900–1989; Nejat Melih Devrim, 1923–1995; Ismet Dogan, 1957; Burhan Dogançay, 1929; Feyhaman Duran, 1886–1970; Ayse Erkmen, 1949; IInci Eviner, 1956; Bedri Rahmi Eyüboglu, 1911–1975; Leyla Gediz, 1974; Hamit Görele, 1894–1981; Mehmet Güleryüz, 1938; Neset Günal, 1923–2002; Nedim Günsür, 1924–1994; Nazmi Ziya Güran, 1881–1937; Mustafa Horasan, 1965; Ergin Inan, 1943; Balkan Naci Islimyeli, 1947; Dogan Ismet, 1957; Nuri Iyem, 1915–2005; Zeki Faik Izer, 1905–1988; Gülsün Karamustafa, 1946; Zeki Kocamemi, 1900–1959; Komet, 1941; Temür Köran, 1960; Irfan Önürmen, 1958; Erkan Özgen, 1971; Sener Özmen, 1971; Hikmet Onat, 1882–1977; Ahmet Oran, 1957; Mübin Orhon, 1924–1981; Mustafa Pancar, 1964; Orhan Peker, 1926–1978; Sarkis, 1938; Yusuf Taktak, 1951; Hale Tenger, 1960; Cemal Tollu, 1899–1968; Canan Tolon, 1955; Selim Turan, 1915–1994; Ömer Uluç, 1931; Adnan Varinca, 1918; Nil Yalter, 1938; Pinar Yolaçan, 1981; Fahr el Nissa Zeid, 1901–1991.
Curators
Çetin Güzelhan is a curator and art historian. Following his studies at the Academy of Applied Art in Istanbul, he studied as a DAAD fellow at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg. He followed this up with coursework at the University of Hamburg combined with exchange semesters at the Aby Warburg Institute in London and at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. He conducted research on Aby Warburg in the archive of the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul between 1992 and 1994. Since 1984 he has been involved in numerous curatorial and art historical activities in Germany and Turkey. Çetin Güzelhan has served as the curatorial and artistic adviser to the “Contemporary Istanbul” art fair since 2007. He is the managing curator of Istanbul Next Wave.
Levent Çalikoglu is a curator and art critic. He is currently the chief curator of the Istanbul Modern Museum of Art. Çalikoglu studied art history at the University of Ankara (Bachelor of Arts) and museum studies at Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul (Master of Arts). At Yildiz Technical University he is a lecturer in the department of art management. He has published numerous articles on modern and contemporary Turkish art. Since 1998 he has been the curator of national and international exhibitions for various institutions and museums, including the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, Akbank Culture and Art Center, Yildiz Technical University Art Gallery, alle in Istanbul and Space Triangle Gallery, London. He most recently prepared the exhibition New Works New Horizons at the Istanbul Modern (2009). Levent Çalikoglu is currently the creator of the Istanbul Modern Berlin exhibition in the Martin-Gropius-Bau together with Çetin Güzelhan within the framework of Istanbul Next Wave.
Official website of the exibition