Art, Action and Food

Sunday June 9 was a beautiful day in Istanbul.  26C, no humidity, and warm.  Perfect day for a big demo.  Yesterday had seen tens of thousands in Taksim Square and an even bigger rally was planned for 4:00 p.m. today.  We are staying in an apartment about a five minute walk from Istiklal Street, the main pedestrian street in Beyoglu (one of the biggest Istanbul districts).  As I have mentioned, our route to almost any destination takes us down Istiklal Street.  Taksim Square is about a 15 minute walk in the other direction.  When we got to Istiklal Street today at about 1:00 p.m.,  there were lots of people heading towards Taksim Square.  We took some pictures of the various groupings and were considering going to the Square--- but the crowd was overwhelming, so we went back to Plan A, which was to visit two contemporary art galleries- SALT Beyoglu, on Istiklal Street, and SALT Galata nearer the water.

Banner with picture of one of the people killed last week

Another group marching up Istiklal Street.

The slogan of the day besides Tayyip Istifa (Tayyip is the PM's first name, Istifa means resign), was Boyun Egme which can be translated as "Don't Give In" or "don't submit".  There were also lots of buttons with "Everyday I go Chapulling" - a reference to Erdogan calling the protesters capulcu (looters).

View looking up Istiklal Street in direction of Taksim Square

Toby with placard

Woman with a megaphone 

Large crowd on Istiklal Street

We first went to SALT Beyoglu, a new gallery founded by Garanti Bank.  It is in a renovated four story building on Istiklal Street.  It used to be an apartment built in the 1850s that housed some retail.  Besides housing temporary exhibits, SALT Beyoglu has a cinema, bistro and an outpost of the Robinson Crusoe389 bookstore.  SALT Beyoglu opened in April 2011.  The main exhibit was entitled "subREAL", which focused on the artistic practice of the Romanian 'action group' subREAL.  The group was formed in the aftermath of the fall of Nicolae Ceausescu, and its social and political criticism had a sharp sense of humour.

Framing Cities, part of subREAL exhibit (from Internet)

Another part of the exhibit, where subREAL took elements of social realism photos 

and focused on the detail, removing large parts of the original photos

The other exhibit was entitled "Taiping Tianguo, A History of Possible Encounters", which explored the connections between four "Chinese" artists who lived and worked in New York during the 1980s and 1990s.  Al Weiwei (from China), Frog King Kwok (from Hong Kong), Tehching Hsieh (Taiwan) and Martin Wong (San Francisco).  The exhibit had interesting work from all four artists (Wong died of AIDs in the 1990s).  There was hardly anyone in the gallery.  We took the photo below from the window on the 3rd floor.

View of Istiklal Street from SALT-- people heading to Taksim Square

After visiting SALT Beyoglu, we stopped for a coffee at Mandabatmaz, where we had Turkish coffee yesterday.  Apparently, the name roughly translates as "so thick even a water buffalo wouldn't sink in it"(so says Istanbul Eats).

One of the best Turkish coffees of our trip- it is thick!

Toby with coffee-- this time we got seats in the alley

We then walked down to SALT Galata, which is on Bankalar (Bank) Street.  SALT Galata opened in November 2011 in the former headquarters of the Imperial Ottoman Bank.  It is a huge space and the renovation of the old Bank is spectacular.  Again, there is a cafe, research and library area, and large exhibition space for temporary exhibits.  There is also a wonderful permanent exhibit outlining the history of the Imperial Ottoman Bank, which started to fade as the empire did after World War I.  It became part of Garanti Bank in 2001.

The current art exhibit was entitled "Trespassing Modernities" and it focused on Soviet architecture (post Stalin) during the 1950s -1980s.  It focused on the different approaches to modernism-- some architecture going back to the avant-garde 1920s and others looking to international modernism.  An interesting exhibit about an unexplored area of architecture.

Trespassing Modernities- Intro poster with Khrushchev

Red Tower 1984

Holiday retreat of the Union of Writers' dining hall 1965-67(from Internet)

The SALT gallery in renovated Bank

After SALT Galata, we made our way to the ferry at Karakoy, stopping to buy some baklava.  While we got tired of Turkish Delight after a few days, small pieces of baklava have proven to be a continuous treat.  After we bought a few pieces in one store, we ran into Gulluoglu, which is supposed to be one of the best baklava shops in town.  It opened in 1949 and was just packed with people having tea or coffee and many small pieces of baklava.

First Baklava shop in Istanbul

Yum

Patrons inside and outside of Golluoglu

We then got on the ferry to Karikoy, on the Asian side, where we had lunch a few days ago.  The waiting room for the ferry was full of people heading back from the Taksim Square demo ( it was about 6:00 p.m.).  Everyone was in a festive mood, spontaneously breaking into anti- Erdogan chants.  We talked to a young man who gave us one of the posters from the demo and posed with Alain.

Anonymous and Alain waiting for ferry

Twenty minutes later we were in Karikoy, back at Ciya for dinner.  This time it was lamb kebabs, a wonderful eggplant and meat dish and a tomato and cucumber salad.  Very delicious, reasonable and filling.  We caught the 8:30 p.m. ferry back into town and climbed up the hill to Istiklal Street, stopping to talk to Fatih at Aponia, his T-shirt store.

Making flatbread inside Ciya

Tomato and cucumber salad

Fresh flatbread

Lamb kebob

Lamb and eggplant dish

Alain with the full meal deal

The next picture is taken from the ferry as we left Karikoy.  As you can see, there is a large crowd of people who have just exited the ferry with their banners from the demo in Taksim Square.  They were all chanting and clapping and so were people on our ferry.

View from our ferry of crowd disembarking at Karaoke

Alain on ferry in front of train station at only stop on way back to Istanbul

Another exhilarating day in Istanbul.  Unfortunately, the Turkish PM does not seem to be understanding what the demonstrations are about.  While Istanbul has been relatively free of clashes in the past few days (though there was some tear gas used last night in a nearby area to Taksim Square), there has been more violence in Ankara and other cities.  No one is quite sure where this is all going, but people are getting engaged and organized.