Category: turkey

Protecting the identity of the pothole patcher

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A stamp featuring an abstract painting by Marsden Hartley, displaying vibrant colors and geometric shapes, labeled "Marsden Hartley | forever | usa".

Above: Street artist Ememem repairing a pothole in a sidewalk on Rainey Street in Austin

I’m just a sidewalk poet…. My work is the story of the city, where cobblestones have been displaced.”

Street artist Ememem, interviewed by Arnesia Young for My Modern Met

Sometimes I feel like a stalker on the trail of tile mosaics of the sidewalk poet of Lyon, France. (See the photos from 18 months ago at the bottom of this post.) So meeting Ememem in person at work Sunday afternoon in Austin left me gobsmacked.

Colorful mosaic artwork reading 'Here Lies a Pothole,' installed in a sidewalk as a creative repair by the street artist Ememem.

Above: “Here Lies a Pothole,” Ememem, Rainey Street, Austin, 2025

The street doctor tries to maintain his anonymity, stealthily installing his mosaics in the dead of night. I imagine that’s due to the fact that often his sidewalk improvement projects are unauthorized.

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Postcard from Istanbul, Turkey: Modern art seems a culture clash

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Postage stamp depicting Mustafa Kemal Ataturk unveiling the new Turkish alphabet in 1928, symbolizing a cultural shift.

Above: “Racing Car,” Mehmet Guleryuz, 2017, Istanbul Museum of Modern Art

But I’m not going for realism…. I’m not going to paint his cage. Lemon will be perched in front of the window like a wild bird who has alighted there of his own free will.”

The Museum of Innocence, Orhan Pamuk, 2009

Birdcages. Potent symbols. Ever since visiting Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence in Istanbul on this same trip, it seems I have been seeing birdcages incorporated in artworks everywhere I go. Often with human figures inside – women.

A large projection screen dominating a gallery in Istanbul Modern Art Museum confronts you with a discomforting cage, a performance art piece by Nezaket Ekici (1970-), wearing an Alice-in-Wonderland-style dress.

In ‘But All that Glitters Is Not Gold,’ the challenge is to choose the right one from among the many identical-looking keys hanging at various distances around the cage. What initially looks like a fun game over time becomes an agony.”

Curator’s Notes, Istanbul Modern

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Postcard from Istanbul, Turkey: Women approach art from different directions

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A Turkish postage stamp featuring an illustration of women, the Turkish flag, and a historical building, representing themes of women's rights and society.

Above: “Femen/Kabatas,” Esra Carus, cardboard cutout, 2016

During a trip in Kabataş, a woman claimed that she and her baby were attacked by about ten half-naked men…. She held a demonstration on the balcony of a hotel in Paris…. It was impossible not to relate with the half-naked show of Femen girls….”

Esra Carus (1968-), Instagram (AI translation)

Two women posing together in front of a cardboard cutout artwork, one wearing a hijab and the other with long dark hair, both smiling amidst a gallery setting.
Above: Translator (left) and Esra Carus during “Grief. Law. Prohibition,” Depo Gallery

We wandered around the streets of the Tophane to Depo Istanbul without much of a clue about what art we’d encounter inside the former tobacco warehouse, renovated in 2008. We were met with “Yas. Yasa. Yasak,” or “Grief. Law. Prohibition,” and immediately were struck by strong, strident imagery.

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