Cityrama

Istanbul Modern Photography Gallery presented the exhibition titled “Cityrama”, looking the city from different perspectives through using photography aesthetics.

Architectural texture is one of the most important elements in presenting a city. Buildings provide the first information about a city. Through their realism, photographs achieve this introduction in the most effective manner. To understand a city, to condense the desired conclusion, to go full force ahead with the addition of a personal style ultimately sets the structure of a city on exhibit and transforms simple images into the art of photography. When photographers, the owners of the city, go behind their lens, they rediscover the buildings, monuments, and streets they know so well by combining their living spirit and aesthetic understanding with the city's historic, cultural, and social signs.

Organized in conjunction with the UIA2005 Istanbul XXII World Architecture Congress, the exhibition featured works of different dimensions, seeking answers to questions such as "Do we know the city in which we live through its history, its culture, and its people? In which of its corners do we properly experience the dizzying change of its seasons? How do we look at the old buildings which quietly let go and do not hold forth against the sharp-toothed and noisy machines of this era? As İstanbul develops through all its heartbreaks, is it getting lost, or are these part of its natural growing pains? Is that moment selected by the photographer a record of the moment the cityscape is destroyed by humanity? Is it a documentation of the development of a living organism? Is this giant city, with all its glory and quiet, the proudest ancestor of the world?"

Artists: Cengiz Akduman, Arif Aşçı, İbrahim Ayşıl, Cemal Emden, Sinan Koçaslan, Selim Seval, Cem Turgay

Curator: Engin Özendes