14th İstanbul Biennial, organized by the İstanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV), takes its form in a series of collaborations under the title
“SAL TWATER: A Theory of Thought Forms” by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev from September 5th to November 1st.
Works of more than 80 participants from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Middle East, Latin America and North America may be enjoyed at more
than 30 venues on the European and Anatolian banks of the Bosphorus at the 14th İstanbul Biennial, which once again will be free. SALTWATER
will extend, besides museums, to temporary settlement areas on land and water like boats, hotels, old banks, car parks, gardens, schools, shops and
private residences.
Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev states, “Salt water is one of the most ubiquitous materials in the world. Sodium in our bodies makes our neurological
system, and thus our vital systems, work; it literally keeps us alive. At the same time, salt water is the most corrosive material threat to the digital age:
if you drop your smart phone in fresh water, you can dry it and it will probably work again. If it falls into salt water, chemical molecular changes in the
materials of your phone will break it. When you visit the 14th İstanbul Biennial, you will spend quite a bit of time on salt water. There is a slowing down
of the experience of art due to the travel between venues, especially on ferries. That is very healthy: salt water helps to heal respiration problems and
many other illnesses, as well as calming the nerves.
This sprawling exhibition spans from Rumelifeneri on the Black Sea, where Jason and the Argonauts passed searching for the Golden Fleece, through
the winding and narrow Bosphorus, a seismic fault line which opened as a water channel some 8500 years ago, and down to the Princes’ Islands in
the Sea of Marmara towards the Mediterranean, where ancient Byzantine emperors exiled their enemies and where Leon Trotsky lived for four years
from 1929 to 1933. It presents over 1,500 artworks, some very tiny, including over fifty commissions by artists as well as other visible and invisible
manifestations such as materials from the history of oceanography, environmental studies, marine archaeology, Art Nouveau, neuroscience, physics,
mathematics and theosophy. Works range historically from an 1870 painting of waves by Santiago Ramón y Cajal, who received a Nobel prize in
1906 for discovering the neuron, to the ground-breaking abstract Thought Forms of Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater (1901-1905), up to a new
installation by Aslı Çavuşoğlu which reflects on an ancient and lost Armenian technique for extracting red dye from an insect, and a new multichannel
installation by William Kentridge inspired by Trostky’s passage through Turkey.”
Among the names in collaboration with whom Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev sculpts the biennial are Anna Boghiguian, Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Cevdet Erek,
Pierre Huyghe, Emre Hüner, William Kentridge, Marcos Lutyens, Chus Martínez, Füsun Onur, Emin Özsoy, Griselda Pollock, Michael Rakowitz, Vilayanur
S. Ramachandran, Arlette Quynh-Anh Tran and Elvan Zabunyan. The Honorary Chairman of the International Council of Friends and Patrons of
the 14th İstanbul Biennial is Orhan Pamuk.
Adriano Pedrosa, Başak Şenova, İnci Eviner, Iwona Blazwick and Ute Meta Bauer serve in İstanbul Biennial’s Advisory Board.
At the 14th İstanbul Biennial, which may be seen by art enthusiasts spending at least three days, venues like İstanbul Modern, Arter, Private Italian
High School and Galata Private Greek Primary School host the mixed exhibition, with other locations displaying the works of solo artists or groups
of artists. In addition to numerous venues spread over different neighborhoods of the city including Galata-Tophane-Beyoğlu, Kabataş-Kadıköy-
Büyükada, Şişli, Historical Peninsula and Rumelifeneri; the Greek ısland Meis will serve as a temporary biennial location.
