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The wit to woo

The Istanbul Art and Antiques Fair is back, and a good thing too

By Cornucopia Connoisseur | February 22, 2020


Back in the naughty 90s, the Istanbul antiques fair was a highlight of the Istanbul arts calendar. Çigdem Simavi's Küsav foundation served up a brilliant blend of high art and high society, most memorably in the Armoury of Yıldız Palace. It was a mix of the flash and the famous,...
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Posted in Contemporary Art, Fine Art

Alexander Chaushian at the Seed

By John Shakespeare Dyson | February 5, 2020

The latest in the Istanbul Recitals series at The Seed, the concert hall attached to the Sakıp Sabancı Museum in Emirgan, featured a solo cellist – quite a departure from the usual run of pianists, pianists and more pianists. Ms Nazan Ceylan, the co-organiser (with Mr Mehmet Şükûn) of these...
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Passionate perfection

The superb sensitivity of Finghin Collins

By John Shakespeare Dyson | January 5, 2020


© Mateusz Zahora, courtesy Istanbul Recitals   The third of the season’s Istanbul Recitals was given by the Irish pianist Finghin Collins at The Seed, the concert hall attached to the Sakıp Sabancı Museum in Emirgan, on December 20, 2019. After the previous recital, I frankly did not hold out...
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A performance beyond praise

Nikolai Demidenko at the Istanbul Recitals

By John Shakespeare Dyson | November 24, 2019


© Marco Boggreve, Courtesy Istanbul Recitals The second of the season’s Istanbul Recitals was given last Friday by the Russian pianist Nikolai Demidenko at The Seed, in Emirgan (photograph by Natalie Lafranchi). And what a contrast to the previous performer, Valentina Lisitsa! Where Ms Lisitsa was flamboyant, Mr Demidenko was...
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Posted in Music and Performing Arts, Classical Music, Musical Shares

The secret charms of Beyoğlu

A new book from France on Istanbul’s ‘Latin Quarter’

By Rose Shepherd | November 10, 2019


Just a day before the long-anticipated opening of the spectacular new Arter in Dolapdere – relocated from its original home on bustling İstiklâl Caddesi – a French-language book, Istanbul Rive Gauche, by Timour Muhidine, hit the bookstores, a timely reminder, should we need one, that Istanbul’s subversive Left Bank has...
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Valentina Lisitsa opens the new season of Istanbul Recitals

By John Shakespeare Dyson | November 2, 2019


© M. Boggreve, courtesy Istanbul Recitals And so the new season gets under way in the Istanbul music scene. Hayırlı olsun (‘May it be productive of good’ – and no broken fingers, cracked clarinets, or wrecked pianos.) 2020 is a real snorter of a year from the astrological point of...
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Posted in Music and Performing Arts, Classical Music, Musical Shares

Highlights of Islamic Sales Week in London

By John Scott | October 20, 2019


Koranic Instruction, signed and dated Osman Hamdy Bey 1890, is the latest painting by unmistakable Orientalist, pupil of Gerome and founder of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum to come to auction In London in the past few weeks. The estimate is £3–5 million. The setting, meticulously drawn, is the Yeşil Cami...
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Doomsday design

Apocalypse now? Istanbul Design Biennial artists and designers explore our increasing dread of approaching global disaster

By Katie Nadworny | October 9, 2018


Image © Kayhan Kaygusuz, courtesy of IKSV Climate change makes the sea level rise. Blustering politicians armed with nuclear weapons pursue reckless policies, and the doomsday clock ticks closer to midnight. Earthquakes threaten the city on the Bosphorus, where the memory of 1999 lingers long, though maybe not long enough....
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Digital art makes some Noise

From projections to GIFs, this exhibition elevates innovative art

By Katie Nadworny | February 14, 2018


On one of these grey Istanbul winter days, I took the metro way out to Maslak to chase a rumour about a particularly bright and exciting exhibition. Spiraling two floors down in Orjin Maslak and turning a sharp corner, I entered a large white room that flickered and flashed with...
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Baroque on the Bosphorus

A Sunday afternoon at the splendid Hekimbaşı Salih Efendi Yalı

By Katie Nadworny | January 17, 2018


Hekimbaşı Salih Efendi Yalı perches like a queen’s ruby underneath the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge, the object of envy for casual boaters who dream of residing in summer mansions. From the back, it hides behind the stone wall that rims the main seaside road past Anadolu Hisarı. With the clouds...
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Cappadocia dreaming

By Victoria Khroundina | August 21, 2015


If you’ve been following the blog, you will know I have been travelling these past few weeks. Last weekend I finally got around to visiting Cappadocia, and out of all the places I have been to in Turkey this awed me the most. The otherworldly landscape peppered with fairy chimneys,...
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Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel

Turquoise beauty

By Victoria Khroundina | August 14, 2015


If you want to get up close and personal with Turkey’s Mediterranean coast there’s no better way to do so than by boat. You can stay in a town such as Fethiye, Kaş, Kalkan or Antalya, and take daily boat trips or, better still, hire your own boat and spend...
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Posted in Modern Art, Photography, Travel
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