EVET versus HAYIR
[YES versus NO]
Resistance art within the public space of Istanbul after the failed coup d’état in the night of July 15 to 16, 2016, in Turkey, until the Turkish presidential referendum of April 16, 2017.
Master thesis Supervisor: dr. Marga van Mechelen Marianne de Zeeuw Second reader: dr. Jeroen Boomgaard
July 8, 2017
Master Thesis Master Art History Faculty of Humanities University of Amsterdam
Student: Marianne de Zeeuw Student ID: 10211241
Supervisor: dr. Marga van Mechelen Second reader: dr. Jeroen Boomgaard
Amsterdam July 8, 2017
Number of words: 24.531
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Acknowledgments
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As Claire Bishop remarks in her book Artificial Hells – Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship (2012), a student or scholar who researches theatre and performance art and everything that is in between, cannot rely on books, essays and documentary photographs only. This statement is also valid for this master thesis.
In this research I had the help of Turkish artists, art historians, and friends, who informed me through conversations, invited me for performances and guided me through Istanbul while translating potential political statements. On this account, I would like to thank Ismail Ata Doğruel (Performistanbul), Gülhatun Yıldırım (Performistanbul), Batu Bozoğlu (Performistanbul), Ebru Sargın (Performistanbul), Asena Günal (DEPO), Gökhan Tun (Istructor Bilgi Media), Bedri Baykam (visual artist and activist), Ferda Çağlayan (art historian – sculptures in public space) and Bulut Eydoğdu (my dear flatmate and translator).
Marianne de Zeeuw Amsterdam July 8, 2017
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Abstract --
Within this master thesis, a research is done on the field of art, power, and resistance, by tracing resistance art in the past turbulent decade in Turkey. I asked myself the question if, and how, we can recognize resistance art in the public space of Istanbul during the turbulent months after the failed coup d’état in the night of July 15 to 16, 2016, in Turkey, until the Turkish presidential referendum of April 16, 2017. By explaining in my first chapter the presence of two dominant political ideologies in Turkey, namely the ideology of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the relation between art and power in Turkey, a context is created in which the place of contemporary Turkish art can be understood. Although contemporary emerged as an autonomous form of art, which sparked little interest from Islamic regime, this autonomy seem to became less. The government, enforced by the artistic outburst during the Gezi Park Protests in 2013, recognized the mobilizing ability of the language of resistance. In order to trace and recognize resistance art as such, I looked into the theories of Michel Foucault, Jacques Rancière and Mieke, and many other researchers on the field of art and resistance. What becomes clear, is that resistance art can be recognized as such if it performs in a critical way. This art form, which I consider as a subgenre of contemporary art, can in this way actively form a language of resistance. Within Turkey, a lot of these art can be connected to the popular ideology of Atatürk, placing him against Erdoğan. After tracing the language of resistance and its embodied and disembodied translations during the Gezi Park Protests, I used this language in trying to recognize a resistance in Turkey under a state of emergency. Although I expected there to be a vivid artistic resistance, the strict and violent government of Erdoğan causes a fear within the art field. Except for several works of graffiti and the emulation of the Turkish word ‘no’(referring to the referendum) as a visual display of resistance, there is little resistance art to be found in the public space of Istanbul.
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Contents --
Introduction 9
1. Istanbul, the Turkish capital of (contemporary) art 12 1.1. The arts as a tool in the quest of president Mustafa Kemal Atatürk 13 1.2. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ideals for a ‘New Turkey’ 18 1.3. The rise of contemporary art in Istanbul 24
2. Art and its political potential in public space 31 2.1. Philosophies and theories on art, power, and resistance 32 2.1.1. Michel Foucault: power calls for resistance, resistance calls for art 33 2.1.2. The representative art regime of Jacques Rancière 35 2.2. Recognizing the critical political potential in art 37 2.2.1. Performativity according to Mieke Bal 38 2.3. Tracing resistance art 40 2.3.1. Disembodied resistance art 41 2.3.2. Embodied resistance art 45
3. The Gezi Park Protests, Istanbul of (2013) 49 3.1. Occupying monumental public space 49 3.2. Tracing the language of resistance during the Gezi Park Protests 52 3.3. The aftermath of the Gezi Park Protests 58
4. (Self-)censorship in the art scene of Istanbul after the failed coup d’état in Turkey in the night of July 15 to 16, 2016, until the presidential referendum of April 16, 2017 62 4.1. The potential threat of contemporary art 63 4.2. The failed coup d’état in Turkey in the night of July 15 to 16, 2016 66 4.3. Contemporary art under a state of emergency 67 4.3.1. The withdrawal of (performance) art from public space 67 4.3.2. Disembodied traces of resistance 69 4.3.3. EVET versus HAYIR 71
Conclusion 75
Bibliography 78 Literature 78 Video 84
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Conversations 84 Images 85
Attachment 1: Map of the centre of Istanbul 87
Attachment 2: Artistic barricades during the Gezi Park Protests 88
Attachment 3: The Lady in the Red Dress 90
Attachment 4: The Atatürk Cultural Centre as the billboard of the Gezi Park Protests 93
Attachment 5: The face of Atatürk on Turkish flags during the Gezi Park Protests 94
Attachment 6: The political potential of graffiti in public space, Istanbul 97
Attachment 7: An ode to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in the Istiklal Street, March 2017, 101 Istanbul.
Attachment 8: EVET versus HAYIR 107
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Introduction
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The Republic of Turkey is sometimes described as the nation of coups:1 from the second half of the twentieth century until 2016, there has been five military coups d’état in the history of the relatively young nation. The first coup d’état was carried out in 1960, followed by similar events in 1971, 1980, and 1997.2 The fifth coup d’état took place about one year ago, namely in the night of July 15 to 16, 2016, in which forces of the military tried to seize the power from the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (1954-). In contrast to the previous four coups, this attack on the ruling government failed. After the deadly outcome of the night, a witch-hunt was opened by the government against anyone who could be connected with the Turkish religious leader Fethullah Gülen (1941-), who was immediately blamed by Erdoğan as the leader of the coup d’état. Also, Erdoğan declared the nation to be in a state of emergency for the following three months.3 Today, Turkey is still in this state of emergency, which brings a lot of uncertainty because of the no-nonsense government that is less restricted by laws, rights, and criminal justice. The arrests of hundreds of thousands potential Gülen-followers and enemies of the Republic of Turkey were the result. The state of uncertainty lasted at least until the presidential referendum on April 16, 2017. On this date, the Turkish civilians were given the opportunity to vote whether president Erdoğan should gain total (executive) power and there should be a change in the Turkish constitution (evet: the yes-vote) or whether the presidential system should remain in its current form (hayır: the no-vote). The outcome of the referendum, was a victory on the side of evet-vote with 51,2 %. The political turbulent period between the coup d’état and the referendum functioned as a period in which a resistance against the power of Erdoğan emerged, as did happen during turbulent times of the Gezi Park Protests of 2013. With the presence of a resistance, potential political art can be analysed as resistance art: art that is part of the visual language of resistance. The relation between art and its
1 Balci, 2007: p. 131. 2 Idem. 3 See:
10 the capital of Turkey, it can be considered as the art-capital of the country, as I will make clear in my first chapter. Also, the (recent) political history makes the public spaces of Istanbul an interesting subject of study. The public space of Istanbul will in this research mostly consist of the outside streets, squares, and parks which are free to enter. Another form of public space, which has also a free entrance, is the Internet. For this reason, I shall include digital forms of resistance art. The first chapter will be an introduction on the Republic of Turkey and the ideologies of president Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Within these ideologies, the place of contemporary art within Turkey shall be explained. This introduction is necessary, since it creates the context in which resistance art in the public space of Istanbul can be understood. In my second chapter I will explain the Foucault, Rancière, and Bal, whose ideas will function as the theoretical framework of this research, and which I shall apply in the third chapter. The third chapter concerns the art of the Gezi Park Protests in 2013 and symbolic representations of the resistance. The context of the first chapter, the theories of the second chapter, and the symbols and images that are part of the visual language of resistance discussed in the third chapter will together provide the information that is necessary to answer if, and how, we can recognize resistance art in the public space of Istanbul during after the failed coup d’état in the night of July 15 to 16, 2016, in Turkey, until the Turkish presidential referendum of April 16, 2017.
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1. Istanbul, the Turkish capital of (contemporary) art
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When one tries to map the field of contemporary art and politics within the biggest city of the Republic of Turkey, it is interesting to take a look into the complex history that lays at the foundation of contemporary Istanbul. This history includes the uprisings and downfalls of different empires, religions, politics and cultures. The Roman emperor Constantine (274-337) transformed from 330 until his death the small settlement of Byzantium into the wealthy and expanding city Constantinople. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, Constantinople became the capital of the Byzantine Empire (or the Eastern Roman Empire). For over a thousand years, the city was the centre of this Christian empire. Conquered in 1453 by sultan Mehmed II (1432-1481), the city, renamed as Istanbul, became the capital of the Islamic Ottoman Empire. Because of a lack of historical documentation, preserved art and architecture in Istanbul are important visual tools in reconstructing ideologies of different emperors, sultans and regimes. These different political representatives are all imbedded within the concept of power by the French philosopher Michel Foucault, a concept which I will discuss extensively in the next chapter.4 Within this chapter, it is important to understand power as the ruler or ruling party of a certain period of time. In the old city of Istanbul, different artistic expressions of power can be traced. For instance, the Christian Byzantine emperors and ruling elite commissioned churches and palaces with figurative monumental decoration, such as expensive mosaics and fresco’s, representing their Christian faith and wealthy status. The sultans of the Ottoman empire mainly focused on religious and non-figurative decorative architecture, corresponding with their Islamic identity which disapproves of the depiction of all living beings. The different ideologies of power can thus be traced by analysing the content and context of the different commissioned artworks and buildings, of which some are still preserved in Fatih, the century-old neighbourhood of Istanbul (attachment 1). Although Jacques Rancière (another French philosopher whose theories on art and politics I will also discuss in the next chapter) is against the utilitarian
4 Foucault, 1982: p. 212. 12 contextualization of art as a representation of a certain regime of power within the academic discourse of art history,5 it is impossible to deny the mutual influence between art and power. Especially within the modern 20th and 21st century, in which many new ways of preserving and documenting ideologies of power are introduced - such as digital reproduced texts, videos, photography, and social media - this bilateral relation can be researched even more extensively. With the large amount of documented information art scholars have access to, it is even more interesting to research power through art, and the other way around. In this chapter, I want to create an understanding of the place of contemporary art within the relatively young Republic of Turkey by researching the relationship between art and two Turkish presidents, whose faces are visually present in both the public spaces as the private interiors of Turkey: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938) and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (1954-). It is important to understand the political ideologies of Atatürk and Erdoğan and their differences, since they are the key in understanding the seemingly contradictory Turkish nationality today, with different protests, conflicts, and coups d’état as a result. Within these ideologies, the place of Turkish art, contemporary art (and eventually resistance art, as I will explain in the next chapter) can be understood.
1.1. The arts as a tool in the quest of president Mustafa Kemal Atatürk After a turbulent period in the beginning of the twentieth century, in which the Ottoman Empire had to deal with the Constitutional Revolution (1908), the First World War (1914-1918), the Independence War (1918-1913) and a big loss of its territory, the last Islamic sultan Mehmet VI resigned from his position.6 The political and Western-inspired political movement of the Young Turks (Jön Türkler, who were also the instigators of the Constitutional Revolution and the Independence War) proclaimed the Republic of Turkey on October 29, 1923.7 Their military and political leader was Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who became the first Turkish president.8 In his fifteen years as president, Atatürk tried to modernize the (in his eyes) outdated
5 Rancière: p.10. 6 The Constitutional Revolution was the re-establishment of the Ottoman constitution of 1876 under pressure of the Young Turks. According to Bozdoğan, this revolution, which revolted against the absolute power of the sultan, was essential in the transition from the an empire to a republic. During the Independence War the Young Turks successfully continued their mission to put an end to the reign of Ottoman sultans. Bozdoğan, 2008: p. 421. 7 Axiarlis, 2014: p. 11. 8 Bozdoğan, 2008: p. 421. 13 politics, economy and culture of the Ottoman past, evolving a modern Turkey which resembled the secular and industrial nations of Europe. The major changes Atatürk carried out, was the structuring of the republican state with a new constitution and an elected parliament, the replacement of the Arabic (and Islamic) language by the Latin-Turkish alphabet, secularizing the education and the court system, giving women the right to vote, outlawing polygamy, and discouraging headscarves.9 Also, he instituted Ankara as the capital of the Republic of Turkey, making use of its central position within the new borders of the nation.10 Istanbul, the old Ottoman capital, did no longer met the requirements of Atatürk’s vision. All the changes Atatürk carried out, supervised into the smallest detail, can be seen as steps towards his quest of ‘a modernized, secular Turkey which could compete successfully with other states, nations and societies at the highest level of contemporary civilization,’11 according to Middle Eastern specialist Jacob M. Landau. Atatürk found this ‘highest level of contemporary civilization’ in Western-Europe. A crucial element in reaching the same level of Western civilization was a reinvention of the Turkish arts. In Atatürk’s beliefs, art was the visual evidence of a prosperous and modernized nation: evidence he did not discover during the reigns of the Ottoman sultans. Atatürk stated: ‘They [Ottoman sultans] did not see the harm done in allowing the arts to be exploited and monopolized by other nations. Our noble nation was deprived of arts.’12 To understand just how important the arts were for Atatürk, it is interesting to look at a (translated) citation, which is an excerpt from a speech in Adana, Turkey, on March 16, 1923:
In order to keep a nation alive it is necessary to have some fundamentals, and as you know among the most important of them are the arts. If a nation is rich in art and people skilled in the arts, it can achieve a full life of its own. A nation that cannot do this is like a man who is lame or lacks a limb, who is an invalid or crippled. But for what I want to say, even this comparison is not adequate. If a nation is cut off from the arts, one of its vital arteries is severed. But I must emphasize that it is not enough to produce individual artists. Men cannot be wholly successful working alone. When God created mankind he gave man a moral principle, which is that all are bound to work together. If this collective activity is a physical necessity, it is clear that working
9 Landau, 1984: p. xii. 10 Idem. 11 Idem. 12 And, 1984: p. 218. English translation. 14
for a common goal is essential. As a first truth we must realize that if we want to progress in any of the arts, people of the same profession and art must unite and cooperate.
If a nation does not give enough importance to the arts, it can expect to face great disaster. But many elements of society do not realize the degree of this disaster, nor, when they do realize it, do they know how great an effort will be needed.13
There are two important elements in this fragment, namely the necessity of high artistic quality and the importance of collaborations between artists, the people and power to keep a nation in progress. The high quality of art was found in popular art styles of painting, music and theatre of Western-Europe. The introduction of the Western arts in Turkey worked in two directions: Atatürk brought Western artists to the growing number of art schools and collectives in the bigger cities of Turkey to educate young male and female students, such as at the School of Fine Arts in Ankara.14 Also, artists were motivated and financed by the state to follow an art education at a Western art academies. Through a portrait of Atatürk by the Turkish painter Feyhaman Duran (fig. 1), who followed his education in Paris,15 it becomes clear that the form and style Atatürk desired for his nation were not the uprising avant-garde styles which gained popularity among the progressive artists in Western-Europe in the beginning of the twentieth century. Instead, Atatürk preferred the more academic, conservative and realistic ways of painting: the taste of the elite in Western-Europe, according to the Turkish president.16 The same goes for his taste in music, dance and theatre. Next to the realistic and formal portraits of important members of the Turkish society, Atatürk commissioned operas and classical music orchestrations and invited Western artists to perform in Ankara and the other bigger cities of the Republic of Turkey.17 Artist who worked for Atatürk and
13 Ibid: p. 217. 14 In 1926, the School of Fine Arts was amalgated with the School of the Fine Arts for Women, providing the first education for female artists in the Republic of Turkey founded by Atatürk. With the amalgation, Atatürk took this emancipation of female artists even further, making them equal to the male students in the educational system. This emancipation within the fine arts (and in theatre) education however cannot be found in the representation of artists working in the professional field during those years, Anadol, 2016: p. 13. 15 From 12 January – 30 July, 2017, the Sakıp Sabancı Müzesi exhibitis a retrospective of the Turkish painter Feyhaman Duran, focusing on his commissioned portraits by Turkish members of the higher classes and his private impressionistic exploration within landscape paintings. Exh: FEYHAMAN DURAN - (İki Dünya Arasında) - (Between Two Worlds), Sakıp Sabancı Müzesi, Istanbul. 16 Anadol, 2016: p. 13. 17 Yazıcı, 2013. P. 2214. 15 other members of the ruling Turkish elite reproduced the formal and stylistic qualities of the Western academic arts as a tool in expressing their clients in a modern and intellectual way. Within the academic discourse of art history, we can discuss how modern this taste in art really was, since Atatürk mostly preferred conventional artworks in the academic styles of painting, music and theatre, educated in Europe in the 19th century. Avant-garde and modernistic styles at the turn of the century (such as Impressionism, Art Nouveau, and Expressionism) that gained popularity among the Western-European elite, did not spark the interest of the Turkish president.
1. Feyhaman Duran. Portrait (Atatürk). 1937.
The second important element in Atatürk’s speech is his call for all Turkish artists to work on a common goal, namely the creation of a new Turkish nationality. In achieving this national feeling, Atatürk ascribed such a big role to artists that art became a state manner, or as Turkish musicologist Hilmi Yazıcı describes: ‘art became the main culture question, the problems of art education became the problem of national education.’18 While using art as a political tool, Atatürk’s aim was
18 Idem. 16 not to simply copy the Western academic art forms and styles, but to combine them with themes that would contribute to a new Turkish nationality. The government had a clear vision of what these themes should be, formulated by Atatürk in six criteria:
1. Especially, it will amplify the love of nation and patriotism and the excitement of Reformism, 2. It will recall the greatest moments of Turkish History and introduce the heroism of the National Struggle, 3. It will portray the country’s largest cities, towns, villages, and natural beauties and it will promote and popularize each corner of the country separately, 4. It will put forward the ugliness and ridiculousness of bigotry, superstition, and bad customs, 5. It will show morality and courage in each field with great examples, 6. It will instil the love of populism and bear the qualities that guide spirits to that major path.19
What these artistic criteria make clear, is Atatürk’s pride for the country, its beauty, past, present, and future. This pride had to be shared through artistic media. As the fourth criterion already suggests, Atatürk did no longer consider Islam as an artistic source for the arts in his secular republic. Instead, he chose non-religious historical events, places, and people to function as a source of artistic inspiration, neglecting the prominent historical presence of Islam on Turkish territory, but also during his own reign. Instead, and not surprisingly, the most popular artistic theme became Atatürk himself. Functioning as the prototype of the new, modern Turk, his image was spread throughout the country, expressed through Western academic art styles. This combination of Eastern and Western ideals lays at the foundation of the so-called ‘Kemalist republican nationalism’,20 in which ‘Kemalist’ refers to the political and social ideology of Atatürk. The efficacy of the spreading of this Kemalist nationalism can still be traced in contemporary Turkey. Spread throughout the nation in the period after the founding of the Republic of Turkey, Atatürk’s ideology took shape in especially the Turkish capital, Ankara, where new museums, theatres and concert halls were constructed. By 1950, around 500 People’s Houses and over 4000 People’s Rooms (Halkevleri) were opened to ‘fill leisure hours with entertainment and educational activities with
19 During, 2005: p. 144. English translation. 20 Tapper, 1991: p. 7. 17 the aim of enabling people physically, mentally and intellectually, by bringing the arts – in which Kemalist principles were stressed – directly to the people,’ as Turkish artist Metin And described them.21 The quest of creating a secularized Republic of Turkey and spreading the Kemalist nationality as the new Turkish nationality through artistic media, evoked (silent) resistance, especially from religious and rural areas.22 The power, represented by Atatürk’s Republican People's Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, or CHP) and his successors, forced the Turks to adjust themselves to the modern and European ways of living, while the vast majority of the Turkish citizens were still Islamic and bound to centuries old traditions. Although Atatürk is still praised today by many Turks because of his efforts to modernize the country and to create a uniform feeling of nationalism, it is impossible to conclude that he fully succeeded in his quest. This will become more clear when we look at the period after Atatürk until the current reign of president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
1.2. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ideals for a ‘New Turkey’ After the dead of Atatürk in 1938 until today, there were several clashes between Kemalists (Atatürk’s political followers and representatives of the ideology of Atatürk) and political opponents, who (among other things) desired a reintroduction of Islam in daily life. The opponents gathered in parties such as the Democratic Party (Demokrat Parti, or DP 1950-1961) and the current ruling Justice and Development Party of Erdoğan (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, or AKP). The army and its soldiers, who consider themselves to be guards of the standards and values of Atatürk, reacted on their turn on periods of uprising Islamic political power through the coups d’état of 1960, 1971, 1980 and 1997 - and eventually 2016. Richard Tapper, who is specialised in Turkish history, explains the clashes as a ‘a simple conceptual opposition […] between “republican” (= modern, secular, European) and between “Islamic” (= backward, decadent, Ottoman).’23 Because of the constant clashing of political ideologies in Turkey, ‘transformation in Turkey have never been a uniform and linear process,’ thus Turkish academic Reşat Kasaba.24 Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, born in 1954 in the poor neighbourhood Kasımpaşa,
21 And, 1984: p. 219. 22 Landau, 1984: p. xi. 23 Tapper, 1991: p. 7. 24 Kasaba, 2008: p. 2. 18
Istanbul, witnessed all the coups and deposits of legitimate elected presidents. According to Dutch journalist Betsy Udink, these events instigated an anxiety and belief in a master plan against himself and Turkey. Udink explains that Erdoğan considers himself and like-minded Turks as victims who are always countered by either Western powers or Turkish opponents (like the CHP).25 Erdoğan found the evidence of his suspicions with the coup d’état in the night of July 15 to 16, 2016, a violent event which I shall explain in the fourth chapter. Erdoğan knew from earlier coups that in order to gain and maintain political power over Turkey, he had to mediate between his Islamic identity and the demanded secular democracy by the army and influential Kemalists. Especially the so-called postmodern (non-violent) coup of 1997 in which prime-minister Necmettin Erbakan and his political Welfare Party (Refah Partisi, or RP, of which Erdoğan was also a member) had to resign from their position because of his outspoken Islamic political ideology, were a direct influence in the changed political conviction of Erdoğan.26 The mediation caused major changes in his political statements through the years, which makes biographic writers such as Udink, journalists, and other (inter)national politicians wonder what the true intentions of Erdoğan are. We can trace these changing political intentions through, again, the relationship between power and art. The first encounter of Erdoğan within the field of art were with written and recited poetry. As a student on an imam-hatipschool, his skills in public speaking got stimulated at a young age.27 The fact that Erdoğan won a recitation contest already in 1973 shows evidence of his talent, according to Turkey specialist Erdal Balci.28 Erdogan and some of his fellow students gathered themselves in the ‘60s and ‘70s around the Turkish conservative poet Necip Fazıl (1904-1983), who was, according to Udink, a great influence for Erdoğan and his Islamic political thinking. Fazıl’s writings describe, for example, the Islam as the one true path and the need of an exalted leader (the başyüçe) who will resist the invention of democracy by the Jews and the West.29 Corresponding thoughts on the side of Erdoğan can be found in a
25 Udink, 2014: p. 289. 26 Lagendijk, 2016: p. 41. 27 Imam-hatipschool: an educational institution with extensive attention to textual interpretation and reciting of the Quran. Udink, 2014: p. 294. 28 Balci, 2007: p. 160. 29 Udink, 2014: p. 280-284. 19 play he wrote and acted in at the age of 21, namely the play Mas-Kon-Yah (Turkish abbreviations for Masons, communists and Jews, three groups which were seen as enemies of the Turkish nation and were overcome by the character Erdoğan played in this piece.)30 Also, the next statement adds to this argument: ‘Democratie is een tram waar wij op mee rijden tot het punt waar we naar toe willen en dan stappen we uit. […] Democratie is geen doel, maar een middel. [‘Democracy is a train on which we ride, until we reach the point where we have to be, and then we exit. […] Democracy is not a goal, but a tool.]’31 Erdoğan’s Islamic and anti-democratic attitude, shimmering through his poetic preferences, became the rigid foundation of his political ideology when he became mayor of Istanbul from 1994-98. But where Erdoğan claimed in 1994 to be an opponent of the Islamic standards and values and the religious sharia law system, in 2000 he had changed his negative opinions about democracy by supporting the democratic law and political system.32 Or so it seemed. The reason for this drastic change in his political attitude at the time was caused by another incident that happened in 1997, next to the resignation of prime-minister Erbakan. Although Erdoğan was praised because of the many pragmatic changes he made in Istanbul, such as the improvements of the water and electric supply, garbage collection, air quality, infrastructure and security, the secular opposition watched his deeds closely. If needed, the opposition would again halt the rise of Islamic thoughts within politics in order to protect the secular democracy of Atatürk.33 They found their opportunity after Erdoğan recited a poem in Siirt, a city in the Eastern part of Turkey, by the famous literary father of Turkish nationalism Ziya Gökalp (1876-1924),34 including the following lines:
De moskeeën zijn onze barakken The mosques are our barracks De koepels onze helmen The domes our helmets De minaretten onze bajonetten The minarets our bayonets En de gelovigen onze soldaten. And those who believe our soldiers.35
30 Ibid: p. 286. 31 Lagendijk, 2016: p. 36. Dutch translation. English translation: Marianne de Zeeuw. 32 Ibid: p.38. 33 Ibid: p. 34-35. 34 Okyar, 1984: p.46. 35 Lagendijk, 2016: p. 39. Dutch translation. English translation: Marianne de Zeeuw. 20
Although these lines are part of a longer passage, Erdoğan was found guilty by the public prosecutor of inciting religious hatred and violence against the government. The mayor of Istanbul was sentenced with ten months of prison and a life-long exclusion from any political function.36 According to biographer Joost Lagendijk, the (eventual) four months in prison in 1999 did the opposite of banning the popular mayor of Istanbul from politics and the collective memory of the Turkish people. The fact that the recited poem was originally from Ziya Gökalp, who is seen by the Turks as an important influence on the ideology of Atatürk and the Young Turks, rather than a fundamental Islamic poet, made Erdoğan a victim.37 After this incident, Erdoğan was forced - but motivated - to change his political course in order to become part of the political field again. Erdoğan’s interest in the ability of convincing people by the use of artistic media, such as written or spoken texts, poetry and Islamic verses, was an factor during his political come-back and the founding of the ruling AKP. Co-founder Abdullah Gül (1950-), former president of Turkey from 2007-2014,38 entrusted Erdoğan with the public speeches and debates. In this public performances, Erdoğan offered the people of Turkey a moderated form of democracy that would end the economic and political chaos of the ‘90s and that would seek rapprochement with the European Union. Although Erdoğan was banned from any political activities, he became the symbolic leader of the new party, which represented both European democratic values (within the public sphere) and Islamic values (within the private sphere). In order to convince the last sceptics, Erdoğan told them: ‘De wereld is veranderd en ik ook [the world has changed and so did I].’39 In 2017, we can re- evaluate the sincerity of this statement. Whether the AKP politicians meant what they promised or not, the party entered the government in 2002, together with the Kemalist CHP. Within this coalition, the AKP fulfilled a lot of their promises: the economy progressed, the Kurds in Turkey were given more rights, negotiations with the European Union slowly progressed, and the political ban of Erdoğan was lifted in 2003 by a change in the
36 Idem. 37 Ibid: p. 40. 38 Ibid: p. 48. 39 Idem. Dutch translation. English translation: Marianne de Zeeuw. 21 constitution.40 After the elections of 2007 were won by the AKP, making Gül the president, Erdoğan legally became the prime-minister of the Republic of Turkey. With the governmental elections of 2014, Erdoğan was not eligible again, unless he presented himself as a presidential candidate. This candidacy sparked protests throughout the country from 2013 onwards, as a result of a slow but noticeable change towards a more Islamic based society: women were encouraged to wear their headscarves again in institutions where Atatürk had forbidden religious clothing, the Ottoman language was reintroduced as a mandatory course in schools, praying during work hours became acceptable, the day Mehmet II conquered Istanbul from the Christians became a national holiday, and a lot of investments were made in construction sites. These sites included the construction of many new mosques. Religious architecture can thus be added to the artistic interests of Erdoğan. An illustration of this interest is the construction of the Çamlıca Mosque (Çamlıca Camii, fig. 2), a mosque and religious site on top of a hill on the Asian side of Istanbul. The project, that should be completed in 2017 and costs around 45 million euros, has sparked positive and negative reactions due to its close resemblance to the design of the Sultanahmet Camii, better known as the Blue Mosque, build 400 years earlier.41
2. Haci Mehmet Güner. Çamlıca Camii. 2017.
40 Ibid: p. 50. 41 Date of visit: April 17, 2017.
Head architect Haci Mehmet Güner used the Blue Mosque, the most famous monument of the Ottoman Empire, as an inspiration, but: ‘we will build an even bigger dome than our ancestors.’42 Independent architect Oguz Öztuzcu is against this emulation of old symbols: ‘Erdoğan is trying to compete with the sultans, […] You simply don't copy symbols - that's degrading the original. […] Unfortunately, this new massive mosque will be a symbol of ignorance, not of knowledge and wisdom.’43 The function, size, and visibility of the project are in line with the political transformation of Erdoğan, distancing himself and the AKP from Atatürk’s democratic ideals and moving towards a more Islamic based nation. When he got elected as president of the Republic of Turkey in 2014, the goal of creating his so-called New Turkey became even more realistic.44
3. Mehmet Aksoy. Statue of Humanity. 2006-2011.
Except for religious artistic media, which were an important part of his New Turkey, Erdoğan showed little interest in the field of art. The disinterest in figurative art can be connected to the Islamic culture, in which depictions of life are forbidden. This is also the reason why Erdoğan only portrays himself through video- and photographs and never commissioned a painting or sculpture of himself, in contrast to Atatürk. Erdoğan also never insisted on government expenditure on the arts, and
42 Idem. English translation. 43 Idem. English translation. 44 Udink, 2014: p. 282. 23 during his reign there has been numerous incidents and interferences with the exposure of certain artworks and closures of theatres, exhibitions spaces and events. A famous example is the case of the demolition of the Statue of Humanity (İnsanlık Anıtı) in Kars, 2011 (fig. 3).45 Commissioned by the Kars municipality (a Turkish city close to the Armenian border), two monumental figures by artist Mehmet Aksoy reached each other the hand, representing both Turkey and Armenia. The sculpture was considered to be an important gesture of reconciliation between the two countries, that had (and still have) a tense relationship ever since the Armenian Genocide and the denial of these horrific events by Turkey. But when prime-minister Erdoğan visited the city in January, 2011, he described the figurative sculpture as a ‘freak’ and ‘monstrosity’.46 Four months later, the sculpture was demolished by the municipality. Even though the relation between art and power is a less intensive one during the conservative reign of Erdoğan than it was during the outspoken artistic reign of Atatürk, it is not a less interesting one. Also the art production did not decrease. With the diminishing interest and support from the state, the rise of an international art market motivated Turkish artists to work more independently. The international orientation, motivated by Atatürk in the ‘30s and ‘40s, and the exploration of artistic freedom, created a climate in which contemporary art could make its entrance. Especially in Istanbul, Turkish contemporary art flourished from the ‘60s onwards, exploring and evolving itself at the background of the two contradicting political ideologies of Atatürk and Erdoğan.
1.3. The rise of contemporary art in Istanbul It is for good reason that the essay on Istanbul by the Turkish curator Duygu Demir is included in the publication Art Cities of the Future : 21st Century Avant-Gardes,47 since the city functions as the centre of the contemporary art scene in Turkey for the last fifty years. Because the book was published in 2013 - the same year in which the Gezi Park Protests took place, which I shall discuss in the third chapter - I shall concentrate on the period from the ‘60s until 2013. I am convinced that the contemporary art scene of Istanbul entered a new period after the protests. The decision to consider the ‘60s as the start of contemporary art in Turkey has got to do
45 March 19, 2017. Conversation: Ferda Çağlayan, Istanbul. 46 March 16, 2017. Conversation: Gökhan Tun. Istanbul. 47 Demir, 2013: p. 115-119. 24 with the art historical assumption that there was a changed mentality of artists, critics and spectators during this decade, as I will also discuss in the next chapter. The result of this changed mentality was a development which moved away from the Western centred art scene, towards a global field of limitless ideologies, media, and inspiration. Contemporary art, the wide overarching art historian term for the period from the ‘60s onwards, left behind the Euro-centric master narrative in which pure art was described as rare and autonomous (according to the influential theory of art historian Clement Greenberg).48 Instead, contemporary art is described as a ‘pluralist happymix’.49 Because of this pluralism we can only define contemporary art as being undefinable; an art discipline without restrictions and without the need to be constricted. In Turkey, contemporary art made its official entrance in the ‘60s too, after the Turkish poet and journalist Bülent Ecevit used the term ‘contemporary art’ (çağaş sanat) to describe abstract artworks of his contemporaries.50 After the coup of 1960, a capitalistic left-wing rose. This group showed an interest in this new art movement which created a climate in which private sponsors such as companies, banks, and wealthy families became (and stayed) the first and most important investors in contemporary artists, artworks, and institutions.51 According to Demir, the avant- garde (and first wave of contemporary) artists of this generation ‘held an unwavering belief in, and commitment to, ideologies of the [Kemalist] state and the ideals of progress associated with modernization.’52 This is in contrast with most artists of the following decade, who were no longer interested in following an education in the West, but found inspiration in their Byzantine and Islamic past. Süreyyya Evren, co-editor of the Turkish art survey Users Manual 2.0 : Contemporary Art in Turkey 1975-2015, describes the decades of the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s as periods of individual avant-gardists instead of an intertwined art scene.53 Artists created in Istanbul alternative exhibitions next to the dominant exhibitions by the many fine art academies, that still functioned as the main education for most contemporary artists. An example were the New Tendencies exhibitions, held every
48 Heartney, 2013: p. 1. 49 Smith, 2006: p. 683. 50 Demir, 2013: p. 115. 51 Bozdoğan, 2008: p. 452. 52 Demir, 2013: p. 115. 53 ‘[…] it was out of the question for contemporary art to take over the scene back then.’ Altindıre & Evren, 2015: p. 23. 25 two years from 1977-1987.54 The organization of New Tendencies showed and interest in new, innovative art, and thus provided an important platform for (mostly) non-figurative, visual and conceptual contemporary artists.55 The avant-gardists of this decades - including a large percentage of women - produced many critical artworks, performances and installations. They were concerned with themes such as female rights, religious suppression, judicial injustice, minorities, and the search for nationalism within the Republic of Turkey. Füsun Onur, Serhat Kiraz, Gülsün Karamustafa, Hale Tenger, Cengiz Çekil, Ayşe Erkmen, and Halil Altindıre are often named as examples of these avant-garde artists.56 Another critical and activist artist who became notorious in the ‘80s is Bedri Baykam (1957-), who is still an outspoken Kemalist today.57 His early installations and graffiti in urban public spaces in the ‘80s give an understanding of the freedom of expression that contemporary Turkish artists enjoyed during that time. An example is the moving installation Box of Democracy (1987), which served both as a platform to
4. Bedri Baykam. Box of Democracy. 1987.
54 Ibid: p. 22. 55 Idem. 56 The names of these artists are mentioned in Demir (2013), Kasaba (2008) and Altindıre & Evren (2015). 57 March 19, 2017. Conversation: Bedri Baykam. Istanbul. 26 think about democracy and as a critique on the political situation in Turkey (fig. 4). Spectators were invited to come inside the box and to write on the walls or adjust the form and content of the work. The box is now preserved in a private room in the art gallery of Baykam (Piramid Sanat), leaving its public function. Political artworks of the ‘80s such as Baykam’s box cannot easily be found within art institutions and museums today, which can be considered as the first example of a change in the freedom of artistic expression from the ‘80s onwards. Halil Altindıre, co-editor of the Users Manual 2, describes the following decade of the ‘90s as a period in which the field of Turkish contemporary art got professionalized. This professionalization was stimulated by a growing interest of private industrialists, the opening of contemporary art galleries, and the nternationalization of Turkish art, artists, curators, and exhibitions.58 Another important factor (or perhaps the most important) of this professionalization was the founding of the Istanbul Biennial; the biggest gathering of national and international contemporary artists in Turkey, organized every two years from 1987. The Istanbul Biennial, supported by the Istanbul Foundation of Culture and Arts (İstanbul Kültür Sanat Vakfı, or IKSV), was initiated by Nejat F. Eczacıbaşı, who explains the aim of the Istanbul Biennial as follows:
We are fully aware of the great importance of artistic exchange between the various nations of the world and the extremely beneficial results that such an exchange produces. We believe that these exhibitions will provide a concrete opportunity for the realisation of such exchanges, and we are thrilled to think that the artistic strength and virtues of our country will be tried and tested in accordance with international standards.59
The Istanbul Biennial was thus, in the eyes of Eczacıbaşı, Turkey’s attempt to participate in the global field of contemporary art. A successful attempt, according to art historian Marcus Graf, who describes the Istanbul Biennials as a growing success.60 The Turkish avant-garde and young generation of contemporary artists first had the opportunity to show their work on smaller exhibitions in Istanbul, such as A
58 Altindıre & Evren, 2015: p. 45. English translation. 59 Graf, 2015: p. 120. 60 Ibid: p. 126. 27
Cross Section of Avantgarde Turkish Art (1984-1988), A, B, C, D Exhibitions (1989- 1993), Koridor (1988-1995), and the Youth Action (1995-1998).61 With the growing success of the Istanbul Biennials, observable through the growing numbers of visitors,62 Turkish artists mentioned above entered the international contemporary art scene. In 2015 (the year of publication of Graf’s article) the Istanbul Biennial is still considered to be of great importance, ‘especially in times of upcoming religious fundamentalism and political extremism, it is an important symbol of democratic liberty’, according to Graf.63 Graf is with this sentence referring to especially the 13th Istanbul Biennial of 2013, which I shall discuss later as part of the Gezi Park Protests.64 Turkish contemporary art from the ‘00s until 2013 can be understood as a continuation of professionalization and institutionalization.65 Although artists spread internationally, Istanbul can still be considered as the centre of Turkish contemporary art. In Istanbul, and especially in the European district Beyoğlu (attachment 1), many private art galleries and museums opened in the last decade, such as the Pera Museum, Sabancı Museum, Galerist, Rodeo, Art, Pilot, Derya Demir’s Galeri Non, Piramid Sanat, and Rampa (attachment 1). There was also a growing interest in artistic research, illustrated and stimulated by a rise of artistic magazines and research institutes such as SALT Galata, PiST, and Depo. The final step of professionalization of Turkish contemporary art can was the opening of the museum Istanbul Modern in 2004. Istanbul Modern is still the only museum in Turkey with a permanent collection of Turkish modern and contemporary art, complemented with periodical thematic contemporary art exhibitions. The permanent collection, free access to the (digital) library, temporary exhibitions, and central position in Istanbul makes the museum of great value for the field of Turkish contemporary art.
61 Altindıre & Evren, 2015: p. 24-27. 62 Graf, 2015: p. 124. 11th biennial, 2009: ca. 101.000 visitors 12th biennial, 2011: ca. 110.000 visitors 13th biennial, 2013: ca. 337.500 visitors 63 Ibid: p. 125. 64 For further research on the Biennials: the Van Abbemuseum, located in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, has an extended archive on the Istanbul Biennials, which can be accessed in the library. 65 The online Turkish platform Turkish Culture gives a comprehensive overview of (contemporary) artists: See:
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As I wanted to make clear in this chapter, Turkish contemporary art evolved itself on the background of different political ideologies. The two dominant political ideologies in Turkey during the rise of contemporary art until 2013, the year which marks the Gezi Park Protests, are those of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. By researching the relation between power and art, one can also research the different political ideologies of the two Turkish presidents. Atatürk introduced the Western standards and values as the foundation of the secular Republic of Turkey in 1923. He ascribed a great role to the arts in his quest of creating a new national feeling, corresponding with the characteristics of his young, modern nation. This national feeling had to be illustrated through Western academic (conservative) art styles, but with Turkish historical and geographical themes. Atatürk did not want to present the young Republic of Turkey simply as copy of a Western nation, but as a combination of Western modern values and standards with his own Turkish pride, culture and history. Erdoğan’s political ideology during his presidency also represents a combination of both Western and Turkish characteristics. Because of the interferences of the Kemalists and the army in periods of uprising Islamic political thoughts, the deposal of president Erbakan in 1997, and his own imprisonment, Erdoğan was forced to replace his publicly outspoken Islamic values with the Western orientated political ideology of Atatürk. However, in his years as prime- minister until 2014, the Islamic identity of Erdoğan already began to shimmer through. This Islamic identity represented the other side of the Turkish pride, culture and history. Atatürk tried to create a unity between Turks by pointing out their modern and secular future, while Erdoğan tried to unify his people by reminding them of their collective Islamic Ottoman past. The construction of mosques throughout Turkey are evidence of this argument. Despite - and because - of the contradicting political regimes of Atatürk, who introduced the idea of the importance of art within a country, and Erdoğan, who seldom showed an interest in any art other than religious artistic media, Turkish contemporary art was able to develop itself (to the most extent) independent from political interferences. This statement does not exclude contemporary art from power completely, since art is always a product of a certain political climate, as Foucault
29 also argued. Also, a lot of politically critical and activist artworks were produced by the first wave of the Turkish avant-garde, such as the Democracy Box of Bedri Baykam. Nevertheless, the growing numbers of Turkish contemporary artists, institutions and the Istanbul Biennial until 2013 are mainly due to developments and investments within the Turkish art scene itself. An important observation to add to this notion is the fact that Turkish contemporary art is still centred in a small part of Istanbul and sparks the interest of a small bourgeois group of the Turkish society. With the Gezi Park Protests in 2013, the relation between contemporary art and power gets more tight, namely in the form of resistance art. In the next chapter, I shall theorize both the relations between art, power and resistance, in order to create an analysis model which we can use while researching the Gezi Park Protests, the art climate after these protests, the coup d’état of 2016, and, eventually, to trace forms of resistance art in the period prior to the presidential referendum on April 12, 2017.
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2. Art and its political potential in public space
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When studying art of previous centuries, it becomes clear that there has always been a two-sided relation between power and art. Power can desire a certain form and function of the arts as is described in the first chapter, but an artist can also express a critique on politics. Especially considering the pluralistic character of contemporary art in the globalized world, a lot has been written on the political potential of art, under terms such as utopian art, activism art, protest art and ideological art.66 Another term is resistance art, another subgenre of political art which is the central concept within this research. According to Eleanor Heartney, the contemporary genre and discourse of political art got a boost when art historians like herself noticed the social and political utopian character of Western modern artists, representing styles such as De Stijl, Bauhaus, and the Russian Constructivists, which ‘aimed to expose the corruption and injustices of real societies’ at the beginning of the turbulent 20th century.67 From the second half of the 20th century, political art and its synonyms can be considered as a contemporary genre of its own, resembling the global and pluralistic characteristics of contemporary art. Contemporary art felt (and still feels) the need to abandon the conservative Euro-centric position of the art scene and art history. Instead, every culture and nation has to be considered as a player in the globalising art scene, as a result of international political interactions, decolonization, global political shifts, improved infrastructures of people and knowledge, and the mass-media that brings the peripheral world closer to both artists and academics. The artistic objectification of the Earth, the up rise of a global culture and the awareness of micro-cultures caused a mass-movement in art, which art historian Baz Kershaw describes as contemporary art.68 According to Rachida Triki, artists feel the need to follow the global taste of
66 The academic popularity on the subject of art and politics is also illustrated by the Master Politics, Art, Resistance, of the University of Kent. See:
2.1. Philosophies and theories on art, power, and resistance Political art was first distinguished as a contemporary subgenre by art historians such as Hal Foster and Benjamin Buchloh, who appreciated the critical ability of artworks over their aesthetic presence.70 The potential of art to function as a social or political critique mirrors art historian’s views on the utopian styles of the beginning of the 20th century. According to Heartney, political art historians argued for the quality of art that espoused an ‘anti-aesthetic stance.’ 71 This is contrary to the dominant theory of the art historian Clement Greenberg of art as a purely aesthetic and autonomous object. According to another art historian, Joes Segal, it is impossible to study political art versus pure art, as if they are opposites.72 Both Segal and Heartney noticed a shift within the contemporary art discourse towards equal attention to both the critical and the aesthetic quality of an artwork, because, in Heartney’s words: ‘concern for aesthetics and critique is often equal, suggesting that beauty may in fact be a powerful tool […]’.73 What this discussion makes clear, is that contemporary political
69 See: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.proxy.uba.uva.nl:2048/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0033.2010.01707.x/full Date of visit: May 24, 2017. 70 Heartney, 2013: p. 366. 71 Idem. 72 Segal, 2016: p. 10. 73 Heartney, 2013: p. 366. 32 art (and thus resistance art) always contains a critical element, whether this element is predominant to or incorporated in the aesthetic value of an artwork.
2.1.1. Michel Foucault: power calls for resistance, resistance calls for art The fact that all theoreticians mentioned above argue for a critical aspect as part of a political artwork, gives rise to the question to what or whom this critique is intended. To answer this question, I want to discuss the theories on power and resistance by French philosopher Michel Foucault, who is considered to be a major influence on the field of art, politics, and power. Despite the terrors of the beginning of the 20th century, Foucault observed in his literary work of the ‘70s and ‘80s the same structures of subjectification that had always tied humans to a certain identity.74 In his analysis on power and politics and their relation with man, Foucault calls for a refusal of this so-called process of subjectification which turns human into beings of subjects.75 This process is empowered by three forces, namely by truth, power, and ethics.76 Truth refers to the objective scientific knowledge of especially the discourse of social sciences within the current episteme.77 Power includes all political structures, systems of rules and norms, the government and its institutions (as I already introduced in the first chapter). Thirdly, Foucault's conceptualization of ethics implies the idea that the individual can partly determine his or her identity. Within his aim of escaping subjectification by truth and power, ethics play an important role for Foucault, since this escape must be firstly motivated by actions of the subject itself. Although he ascribes great importance to the three forces separately, Foucault is mostly interested in the interaction between these three forces in order to determine the conditions, limits, and escape of subjectification.78 Within this research, the interaction between power, ethics, and their modes of subjectification of the individual will be at the centre, since I will link them to the identification of resistance art. According to Foucault there is an opposition in our modern era: on the one side, the process of subjectification will always be carried out by the three axes of subjectification, namely truth, power, and ethics, but, on the other side, a group of
74 Simons, 1996: p. 1. 75 Foucault, 1982: p. 216. 76 Foucault, 1984: p. 351. 77 An episteme is, according to Foucault, a prolonged scientific period in which certain knowledge, assumptions, data, conclusions and theories are being considered as the truth. 78 Simons, 1996: p. 30. 33 people will always try to escape this process.79 With this paradox comes two important concepts whose existence depends on each other: ‘constraining limitations and limitless freedom.’80 It is a part of human nature to always want to resist the established order of power and its restrictions, in order to replace this with a desired form of new power – under the guise of freedom – which again creates the possibility for others to resist it. Resistance takes a physical form when individuals gather and demand for a new form of freedom, and thus a new form of power. Foucault does not take a stand against the presence of power and resistance, but against their returning patterns.81 Within these patterns, humans are always a product of subjectification through power, whether they accept, resist, or cross the limitations of a ruling government. The vast majority of people accept the limitations - rules, codes and borders - of power. Those who offer resistance against these limitations face physical and mental discipline, the repetitive instrument of subjectification by power, executed through institutions such as prisons and schools.82 According to Foucault, discipline is an essential part in the process of normalization, in which the ruling regime portrays itself as the exemplary representation of the current standards and values that are deemed to be taken over by those who are ruled.83 When the government presents itself as the ‘normal’, the resisting other will be called the madman.84 Resistance against both discipline, normalization, and the ideology of power, derives in most cases from marginalised groups in society.85 An important remark Foucault makes on this notion, is the difference between power and dominance: resistance is only possible within the realm of power, but not within a regime of dominance. One can speak of a dominant regime when discipline successfully prevents the madmen to gather, resist and transgress the limitations of power. Resistance is in its first stages an individual mental resistance, rooted within Foucault’s theories on ethics. At the core of understanding this concept are the relation of the individual with himself and his moral actions, desires, sexual
79 Ibid: p. 3. 80 Idem. 81 Ibid: p. 4. 82 Foucault, 1979: p. 170. 83 Ibid: p. 308. 84 Simons: p. 71. - The distinction between the normal versus the madman is important when I will discuss political actions of the Turkish president Erdoğan in chapter 4. 85 Foucault, 1982: p. 212. 34 preference, and thoughts. Ethics (and the degree of subjectification) are shortly described by Foucault as how ‘one performs oneself.’86 The word ‘performs’ is interesting here, since I will use the word in different conjugations later in this chapter. Foucault compares the need of self-reflection and self-performance within the ethical realm of subjectification with the dominant art-historian theory of Clement Greenberg, who classified true art as being purely aesthetical and self-reflexive. Just like aesthetic reflection in art, Foucault argues for aesthetic reflection as the essential part of the process of evaluation and resistance within oneself, in order to obtain independence of all forces of subjectification. But, as Foucault admits, only few can escape all forces of subjectification.87 Because, even when one understands and performs oneself and resists the subjectification of power as being normal or disciplined, one will probably become the subject of the madman. In this way, the individual is again subordinated to the structures of power.88 According to Foucault, resistance takes form in both individual (ethics) and like-minded collective actions and moments of transgressing limitations, without erasing these limitations.89 In order to illuminate the limitations of power, art can play an important role. Except for several modernist autonomous works of art (which Foucault described as purely aesthetic) art can always be related to power. After all, art is the object of a subject, the artist, whose identity partly derives from the subjectification of power Following the subjectification of the artist within the regime of power, art can be placed within, against, or outside the limitations of power.90 In line with this theory of Foucault, every artwork can thus be considered as political art. But within a resistance, art can really function as the visualization of political critique and the ideology of the madmen.
2.1.2. The representative art regime of Jacques Rancière To understand the way in which political art functions as the critique of a resistance as defined by Foucault, it is useful to take a closer look into a fraction of the theories of Jacques Rancière, another French philosopher. Rancière stands in line with Foucault because of his likewise interdisciplinary approach of politics, art, and
86 Foucault, 1987: p. 27. 87 Simons, 1996: p. 69. 88 Ibid: p. 34. 89 Ibid: p. 69. 90 Foucault, 1984: p. 351. 35 aesthetics in his publication The Politics of Aesthetics (2004). Rancière, like Foucault, claims that power can determine the identity of a person, by making a distinction between the group that follows the exemplary political standards and values (included, visible, audible) against the group that wishes not to do so (excluded, invisible, inaudible).91 This is a variant of the normal man against the madman, as Foucault would describe them. According to Rancière, art lost her value the moment she was analysed through the lens of our modern academic discourse and became a product of a certain time and space.92 It is with this lens that I observed Byzantine and Ottoman art as a product and thus representation of its time in the first chapter. Even though Rancière analyses this development negatively, he makes his own distinctions between three different regimes of art within art history, namely the ethic, representative, and aesthetic regime. The two last regimes are a symbolic example of the distinction between the critical, representative quality of art versus art as being purely aesthetic.93 Within the chaos of postmodernity and contemporary art, observed by Rancière, all three regimes of art seem to exist next to each other. Instead of analysing the three regimes of art, I want to highlight parts of the theory or Rancière in order to create a deeper understanding of the way in which postmodern or contemporary art can function as a visualization of political resistance. Like Foucault, Rancière states that only few artworks can be considered part of the aesthetic regime, since most artworks nowadays (both figurative as non- figurative) represent a certain time and space, and thus can be classified as part of the representative regime.94 Because art within the aesthetic regime does only reflect on itself, it is irrelevant while researching political art. Most academics today consider art as object of a human subject which represents a certain context. This contextualization of art makes it a common-good that calls for a shared experience and participation from the spectators, according to Rancière.95 This shared
91 Rancière, 2004: p. 3. 92 Ibid: p.10. 93 Ethical regime: ‘primarily concerned with the origin and community.’ Representative regime: ‘liberates imitation from the constraints of ethical utility […], following own rules of fabrication and criteria of evolution.’ Aesthetic regime: ‘puts the entire system of norms into question […] provokes a transformation.’ Ibid: p. 4. 94 Ibid: p. 18. 95 Ibid: p. 12. 36 experience and interpretation of art depends on the background of the spectator and the time and space in which the artwork is presented.96 This notion is interesting, since it suggests that artworks do not have a unilateral narrative. This opens up the question when one recognizes the critical political potential of an artwork and thus classifies art as resistance art.
2.2. Recognizing the critical political potential in art Resistance art, as a subgenre of contemporary art, can thus be understood as art that inhabits a critical political potential as well as an aesthetic value. Both Foucault and Rancière acknowledge the important relation between art, politics, power, and resistance. Foucault argues that almost all art can be connected to power because of its subjectification. Resistance art and its critical political potential can be traced at the transgression of limitations, defined by the ruling regime. Rancière, who seems to stand in line with the theories of Foucault, speaks of the representative regime in art history: the regime in resistance political art can be classified, although Rancière himself is an opponent of classification within the academic discipline of art history. Representative art suggests that it can be recognized as a worldly representation, obtaining its interpretation by the shared experience of a group of people, dependent on a certain time and space. Within different times and spaces, ‘an artwork can change its political reference’,97 according to Rancière. Joes Segal agrees with Rancière: ‘The political meaning of art is a matter of constant discussion and reinterpretation, even though the relative contribution of artists, critics, (art) historians and politicians in this process might differ for each period, region and political system.’98 In order to identify art as a political critique or resistance, it is thus necessary that the critical political potential is being recognized as a shared experience by a collective of individuals. But when does this recognition happen? To be more concrete within the borders of this research: when do I, a Western art historian who is working within the pluralistic and global field of contemporary art, recognize a potential political critique in a contemporary artwork of a different culture? In order to give an answer to this question, I want to discuss the concept of performativity by literature scientist and art critic Mieke Bal. This concept, as I shall
96 Ibid: p. 18. 97 Idem. 98 Segal, 2016: 131. 37 explain, can be used as an art historian model of analysis. Next to the theory of Rancière on the representative regime of art, Foucault’s ideas on subjectivity can also be traced within the ideas of Bal. Just like the human identity is defined by the three forces of subjectivity (truth, power, and ethics), so is the identity or narrative of an artwork subjected to the way it performs on the memory of the individual spectator, who is influenced by the content and context of the artwork and the intention of the artists. The important role the individual spectators performs in order to give meaning to an artwork shows similarities with Foucault’s concept of ethics, while the ideas of Rancière can be traced within the important relation between context of an artwork and spectator. Because of the resemblances between the theories on art, power, and resistance of Foucault and Rancière with the ideas of Bal, it is easier to apply the theory of Bal as a model of analysing the critical political potential of art.
2.2.1. Performativity according to Mieke Bal Performativity is a word, term, and concept which gained popularity from the ‘60s onwards in different academic disciplines such as art history and theatre studies. As a result of its interdisciplinary use, the word has many different interpretations and explanations. The term performativity was introduced by language philosopher J.L. Austin in his publication How to Do Things with Words (1955). Austin explains in his speech-act theory the existence of spoken words that do something: spoken words that work in a performative way within a certain cultural context.99 The words ‘I do’ on a wedding are the most famous example of performativity within linguistics. The linguistic speech-act-theory of Austin gained interdisciplinary popularity in the ‘60s, in which a performative turn within both the art and theatre field was observed by theatre scholar Erika Fischer-Lichte, expressed in happenings, Fluxus, and the rise of performance art. Within this period, Fischer-Lichte, like Austin, noticed artworks and artists that insisted on action and interaction with the audience.100 In this sense, there was a need to redefine spectatorship, leaving behind the old definition of the passive spectator who observed an artwork from a distance. Another theatre scholar, Chiel Kattenbelt, adds the idea of self-reflection to the theory of Fischer-Lichte, a term similar to Foucault’s explanation of subjectification through the force of ethics.101 It is
99 Culler, 2000: p. 504. 100 Fischer-Lichte, 2008: p. 18. 101 Kattenbelt, 2010: p. 32. 38 because of the ability of self-reflection that spectators can become active themselves. Performativity thus refers to an artwork that calls for an interaction with the active self-reflexive spectator, in order to become a work of action itself. With the ideas of the theatre scholars mentioned above in mind, it is easier to understand the theory on performativity by Mieke Bal. In the article ‘Performance and performativity’, Bal explains the relation between the three different (but connected) concepts of performance, performativity, and the memory.102 All artworks, whether it is an embodied performance or a disembodied painting or sculpture, can construct a narrative within the head of the individual spectator, by evoking time- and space- bound associations that derives from the memory of the spectator. The associations derive from repetition and recognition of cultural determined etiquettes, symbols, objects, and customs, causing the memory to become a trained instrument of recognition.103 This interaction between the ‘performing’ artwork and the actively working memory of the spectator is caused by what Bal describes as the performativity of an artwork.104 Performing in this way refers to the way in which an artwork does something, or the process of recognition it sets in motion. In order for an artwork to become performative, a spectator has to engage with the artwork. Bal (like Fischer-Lichte and Kattenbelt) thus strives towards a definition of actively engaged spectatorship. But, unlike as the theatre scholars argue, this form of spectatorship is not just applicable on the field of theatre, dance, and performance art, but can be applied on any discipline of art. After all, since every artwork can interact with the spectator, performativity can be traced in all artworks. Within Bal’s ideas on performativity, recognition of an artwork within the memory can be traced on three levels. These three components of recognition are important when we later look at the recognition of resistance art. Firstly, the content of art performs on the memory of the spectator, by the associations and interpretations of the individual who is determined by his or her cultural context. In this sense, all artworks can be a representation of daily symbols. This idea seems to point at the representative regime of art as described by Rancière, leaving behind the importance of the existence of the ethic and aesthetic art regimes. The fact that, an
102 Bal, 2002: p. 182. 103 Ibid: p. 176. The well-known philosopher and feminist Judith Butler also based her theory of performing gender on the notion of repetition. She argues that it is through repetition that we adapt the cultural codes and etiquettes of our gender and corresponding gender, in order to behave in an expected way. 104 Ibid: p. 177. 39 artwork always exists in a certain context and represents this context, according to Bal, the second level of understanding performativity, seems to attribute to this hegemony of the representative regime.105 I agree with Bal on this notion, since I also argue for an interpretation and recognition of art that is subjected to the time and space in which it is created and presented. The third and final component that seems to be of importance within Bal’s ideas of performativity, is the intention of the artist. This intention is known to the spectator through public statements, social media, textual information, and other forms of communication.106 Because of the pact that art always performs a certain narrative within the memory of the individual spectator, according to Bal, we can try to create an understanding of a collective narrative by using the the content, context, and intention of the artists as tools of performativity. Because resistance art needs to be recognized as a resistance within a regime of power, I spoke earlier of the critical political potential of an artwork. The addition ‘potential’ disappears when multiple individuals, either the normal ruling elite or the mad group op resistance, to speak in terms of Foucault, recognize and thus define an artwork as being critically political by illuminating and transgressing limitations. When the meaning of a contemporary artwork no longer solely depends on the subjective individual understanding, but also stems from a universal recognition, the art historian can begin to map resistance art.
2.3. Tracing resistance art As I already mentioned, resistance art as a subgenre of contemporary art has become a popular research subject within different academic disciplines. Since 2010, which marks the beginning of the Arab Spring,107 scholars and researchers on the field of political art seem especially interested in the Arab Middle East, a region where Islamic ideologies dominate daily life and politics and where contemporary art is still a rare (but upcoming) genre. There seems to be a growing academic interest in comparative artistic research within the whole region and its past turbulent decade. Or as Werbner, Webb, and Spellman-Poots argue: ‘While books have already been written on the Arab Spring, there is still a need to examine the uprisings
105 Ibid: p. 180. 106 Idem. 107 Werbner, Webb, Spellman-Poots, 2014: p.1. ‘The mass uprisings against authoritarian and dictatorial regimes in the Arab world that followed came to be known as the “Arab Spring”, […] wave of revolutions that united workers and the middle class across a swathe of countries in demands for democracy, liberalism, republicanism and freedom.’ 40 comparatively, from an anthropological and popular cultural perspective, as they are integrally related to protests elsewhere.’108 After the word ‘elsewhere’, the writers discuss very briefly the Gezi Park Protests of 2013 in Turkey, without discussing the events of this protests later on in their book Global Protest : the Political Aesthetics of the Arab Spring and Beyond (2014). Many other publications on the Arab Spring also leave out Turkey, such as The Power and the People : Paths of Resistance in the Middle East by Charles Tripp (2013) and Terror and Performance by Rustom Bharucha (2014). This is an important notion, since it excludes Turkey from the Arab world. It is indeed possible to point out differences between Turkey and most of the nations that were part of the Arab Spring, such as the Turkish language which differs from the Arabic language. Also, the fact that Turkey has already been a democracy for almost a century and was never a European colony. However, this is in my opinion not enough reason to exclude Turkey totally from recent events during the Arab Spring. As the first chapter already made clear, there are two political ideologies present in the Republic of Turkey that represent either the democratic example of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk or the more conservative Islamic regime of current president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. As Betty Udink would call them, they represent the Kemalists versus the Tayyipists.109 It is the ideology of Erdoğan that is growing in popularity these last years, motivating the rise of a resistance which demands a transparent form of democracy through protests such as the Gezi Park Protests. The collective feeling of a growing domination within the resistance and their call for a pure democracy is what binds the Turkish resistance with groups of resistance during the Arab Spring, and even with resistance beyond this region. It is thus useful to first look into researches on resistance art in other nations of conflict, in order to create a visual language of resistance. While analysing theoretical examples of disembodied and embodied resistance art, we can train our memory in perceiving certain performative images as a visualisation of resistance.
2.3.1. Disembodied resistance art Political scientist Charles Tripp, who follows the theories of Foucault on the relation between power and resistance, argues that a resistance has its roots in hidden, marginalized groups of dissatisfied individuals.110 Within this hidden transcript, as
108 Ibid: p. 23. 109 Udink, 2014: p. 312. 110 Tripp, 2013: p. 14. 41 another political scientist James C. Scott defines this pre-stage of resistance, a language of resistance is constructed in which art plays an important role.111 The political potential of art during this hidden stage is only being recognized by the ones who are part of the hidden resistance; the ones who perform the roles of the normal and obedient civilians within the public transcript.112 When the first open statement of resistance appears, the hidden transcript becomes a part of public life and space.113 It is within this symbolic declaration of openly resistance, that disembodied resistance art can be recognized by both the resistance and the power. Public presence thus defines the required space for resistance art in order to perform in a critical way, since power can only be successfully addressed within the public sphere. The importance of the public space as the context for a performative critical artwork is also underlined by Athena Athanasiou: ‘We need public spaces for possibilities of living and being in-common.’114 In other words: public space inhabits the possibility to gather individuals in a resistance against the power. This argument has a paradoxical element, because it is the same power which determines which spaces are public.115 The most well-known examples of the use of public space during the events of the Arab Spring are the massive demonstrations on central city squares and streets, such as the Tahrir Square (Cairo, Egypt), Quwatli Square (Homs, Syria), and Bourguiba Avenue (Tunis, Tunisia).116 In Istanbul, the centre of public space and demonstrations are the Taksim Square (Taksim Meydanı) and Istiklal Street (Istiklal Caddesi) in Beyoğlu. It is within these public spaces that resistance art can perform as a critique, explained by Tripp as follows: ‘Its power will be tied to the resonance it can strike in an audience that may itself be changing, transformed by its own experiences and for whom therefore the old aesthetics are already losing their grip.’117 It is exactly this resonance which the ruling government wishes to strike down, in order to put a stop to a possible enlarging of resistance. According to Tripp, three important forms of disembodied resistance art in public space are murals/graffiti, posters, and cartoons, since they are depending on existing forms of recognition and thus interact quickly with the memory of the
111 Scott, 1990: p. XII. 112 Ibid: p. 4. 113 Ibid: p. 8. 114 Athanasiou, 2017: p. 683. 115 Negri, 2013: p. 101. 116 See:
5. Musa Kart, Don't create tension... We promised, we will solve it, 2004.
118 Idem. 119 Ibid: p. 261. 120 Ibid: p. 289. 121 See:
6. Several cartoonists of Penguen, The World of Tayyip, 2005.
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In the cartoons, the critical character derives from its content, the context of the satirical magazine, but also the intention of the artist. The intention of the artist, the third component regarding the performativity of a disembodied artwork, is not always as recognizable as it is in cartoons. Especially in periods of uprising resistance, the interpretation of an artwork by the power can differ from its artistic intention, described by Segal as follows: ‘Politicians and government agencies may project their own ideas, interests and fears on artworks.’122 The intention of the artist is thus subordinated by the associations stimulated by the content and context of the visual artwork. Especially within the regime of power, this misunderstanding of intentions can be considered as a form of paranoia.123 Tripp adds to this notion: ‘It also testifies to the care that government takes of its own image and its perennial anxiety about the fragility of that image and its vulnerability to gifted and determined resistance.’124 Reflecting again on Erdoğan’s lawsuits against the cartoonists, these lawsuits seems to be early examples of the strict policy of the Turkish president today (as I will describe in the last chapter) and thus illustrate the truth in both of the citations above.
2.3.2. Embodied resistance art When considering murals/graffiti, posters, and cartoons (bus also paintings, photographs, sculptures, and video-art) as disembodied but performative artworks, embodied art incorporates, firstly, art disciplines such as theatre, dance, recitals, and performance art that illuminates the resistance and seeks for a confrontation by pushing the limitations of power, and, secondly, the aesthetics of the collective embodied resistance itself, and. In the next two chapters, I will focus on the first forms of embodied resistance art. However, since a lot has been written on the aesthetics of resistance, power, protests or activism, I will first briefly discuss the second notion of embodied art. Since the performative turn and the new definition of spectatorship, an active role is ascribed to spectatorship in other academic disciplines than just that of the arts. Foucault stated that the individual actively has to perform itself and Rancière underlines the importance of the human body for the understanding of politics and resistance, ‘as meaning [gets] produced by the actor’s body, as games of proximity or
122 Segal, 2016: p. 8. 123 Scott, 1990: p. 65. 124 Tripp, 2013: p. 259. 45 distance.’125 The presence of a performing or performative body (which can also be considered the body of the ruler) thus stimulates the spectator to actively perform and engage with the other body within its presence. The similar physical resistance of performing and engaging spectators can be understood as an embodied collective resistance itself. This performance again performs, and stimulates a participatory form of spectatorship, or as Werbner, Webb, and Spellman-Poots state: ‘Participation and embodied presence played a key role in making the protests aesthetic performances on a massive scale. The demonstrations were remarkable for their huge mobilisations of real bodies in space.’126 Only after the participation of embodied members of the resistance, the narrative of the excluded can root itself within the collective memory.127 Art critic Claire Bishop, in her book Artificial Hells : Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship (2012), explains new views of spectatorship as the driving force for a new, collective artistic form, which she defines as participatory art.128 Within participatory art, the spectators and their bodily presence provide the artistic medium in order to create a performative work of art. The focus of participatory art lays not with the aesthetic quality of a work, but with the participative process.129 When the spectator becomes a participant, and thus engages with the performativity of an embodied or disembodied artwork, the interaction between the artwork/actor and the memory becomes an artistic process without an unambiguous end. Since ‘[social and political critique] tends to be expressed most forcefully in the live encounter between embodied actors in particular context’130, thus Bishop, we cannot underestimate the importance of the live embodied encounter of the resistance itself. In line with Bishop’s theories, a resistance itself can be recognized as an aesthetic performance, performing in the same way as participatory art. Despite the interesting interpretation of Biship and the symbolic similarities between embodied participatory art and embodied resistance,131 I want to return to
125 Rancière, 2004: p. 17. 126 Werbner, Webb, and Spellman-Poots, 2014: p. 9. 127 O’Rowe, 2016: p. 3. 128 Bishop, 2012: p. 1. 129 Ibid: p. 2. 130 Ibid: p. 3. 131 Ibid: p. 5/6. Not only is it difficult to create a clear understanding of when one analyses a collective action as aesthetical or artistic, it is already difficult to obtain enough resource material in order to study a collective action and the way it performs at all, according to Bishop. A researcher should be participating him-/herself on site, while staying objective. It is because of this lack of possibilities to participate in collective actions such as 46 the first and less symbolic forms of embodied performative resistance art. Keeping in mind the importance Bishop ascribes to the the live encounter between embodied actors and members of the resistance, embodied performances within public yet political space can quickly be conceived as political artworks.132 This seems especially true for performance art. Theatre scholar Marvin Carlson defines performance art as follows: ‘Typical, performance art is solo art, and the typical performance artists uses little of the elaborate scenic surroundings of the traditional stage; but at most a few props, a bit of furniture, and whatever costume (sometimes even nudity) is most suitable for the situation.’133 In line with the growing popularity of performativity from the ‘60s onwards, performance art grew out to be an ideal potential medium of expressing political and social concerns of the invisible and inaudible groups of society.134 In Turkey, political and social performance artworks were occasionally created by the members of the first avant-garde in the ‘80s, such as Halil Altindıre, Bedri Baykam and Gülsün Karamustafa. Carlson discusses different theorists on performance art, who all ascribe a serious critical function to performance artworks. However, their representativeness and readability differed under different contexts. Because of its critical origin, Carlson argues that ‘performance art, [is] now widely associated with social and political concerns, with a close and constantly negotiated relationship with its audience and with the manipulation of a wide variety of media.’135 This generalization of performance art as a political artwork influences the intention of the artist. Assumingly, spectators of performance art, and especially within the public space, will easier recognize critical political intentions and classify the work as a work of resistance.
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In this chapter I tried to formulate a broad understanding of the field in which resistance art operates in. After analysing the theories of Michel Foucault on power and resistance and the three forces of subjectivity, resistance art can be understood as an illumination and transgression of the limitations of power. Jacques Rancière
the Gezi Park Protests, that I wish to focus mainly on the second more recognizable form of embodied political art, namely artistic disciplines of performance art, dance, theatre, etc. 132 Kershaw, 1992: p. 3. 133 Carlson, 2004: p. 6. 134 Ibid: p. 130. 135 Ibid: p. 195. 47 would classify resistance art within his concept of the representative art regime, a regime that, while following its own artistic rules of fabrication, is legible by the spectator within a certain time and space. Resistance art, which distinguishes itself from other forms of contemporary by the incorporation of both an aesthetic and a critical quality, can thus be recognized as such because of this representation. A representative artwork is recognizable within the process of what Mieke Bal calls performativity. Bal argues that every work of art engages with the memory of the individual spectator to create an individual narrative. Because of this action of the artwork or performance, art becomes performative. Three factors that influence the recognition of the performative artwork are the content and context of the work, and the intention of the artist. A look into researches on disembodied and embodied resistance art in other politically changing regions, such as the Middle East, creates a language of resistance which we can now apply on resistance in Turkey in 2013. This researches made clear that the content of resistance art is first being recognized within the hidden transcript of a group of like-minded individuals. When the resistance (or the madmen) enters the public spheres of power, art can truly perform as a political or social critique. Resistance art thus functions at its finest within public space, where it performs through repetition on the memory of the spectator. The spectator, who can be either part of the power or the resistance, recognizes certain images as illumination of the resistance. Performative resistance art, such as cartoons, murals, posters, and performance art, thus perform an important role in the whole language of a resistance. It is this language which I shall analyse in the next chapter, which concerns the Gezi Park Protests of 2013 in Turkey.
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3. The Gezi Park Protests, Istanbul (2013)
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During the reign of mayor and prime-minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the people of the relatively Western orientated city of Istanbul witnessed changes in the physical and mental state of the city. First, a physical expansion of Istanbul can be observed through the constant presence of many construction sites. A lot of apartments, mosques (such as the earlier discussed Çamlıca Camii), bridges, shopping malls, hospitals and other institutional service buildings were constructed in the past two decades. The expansion of Istanbul is still an ongoing process which offers a lot of employment possibilities. However, the urban expansion happens at the cost of the few remaining green spaces in and around the city. Next to the physical changes, a symbolic rise of Islamic standards and values in daily life was felt in the same decades, originating from the political ideology of Erdoğan and the AKP.136 As I already made clear in the first chapter, Erdogan steadily left his so-called train of democracy during his times as prime-minister and president . Members of the AKP, who stood for a moderated form of democracy in the first active years of the party, now presented themselves as exemplary Islamic citizens. In terms of Foucault: members of the AKP connected the Islamic values and standards to the normal citizen of the Republic of Turkey. Both the physical and the symbolic changes in Istanbul, but also the rest of Turkey, empowered different protests against actions of the power. In 2013, the biggest public demonstration took place in Istanbul which is known as the Gezi Park Protests. The protests, that are well documented by different media such as photography and video, lasted for almost two weeks and were the beginning of a changed art climate in both Istanbul and the rest of Turkey. The reason of this changed climate was the manifestation of a language of resistance against the power of the AKP, which became visible for both the resistance and the power.
3.1. Occupying monumental public space Already during his time as mayor of Istanbul (1994-98), Erdoğan had plans to open a pedestrian space and shopping mall around the Taksim Square and the small lawn of
136 March 14, 2017. Conversation: Batu Bozoğlu. Istanbul. 49 green next to it, the Gezi Park (Gezi Parkı), both located in the centre of Beyoğlu.137 In 2004, the idea of rebuilding the original Taksim Military Barracks of 1939 was proposed, including the construction of a new mosque.138 In order to accomplish these plans, not only the little that was left of the Gezi Park had to disappear, but also the monumental building of the Atatürk Cultural Centre (Atatürk Kültür Merkezi, or AKM). The AKM functioned as the biggest opera house and exhibition space, before the government closed it in 2008. At the end of May, 2013, the Housing Development Administration (Toplu Konut İdaresi Başkanlığı, or TOKI) had the permission of prime-minister Erdoğan to start cutting down the trees of the Gezi Park.139 This action gathered several environmentalists who hung on to the trees, but were violently evicted by the police. The violent reaction of the police against the non-violent demonstrators, together with earlier petitions and small-scaled protests against the disappearances of other parks in Istanbul,140 sparked a massive resistance from the beginning until the 10th of June, 2013. The massive resistance can be explained by what Robin Celikates, professor in political and social philosophy at the University of Amsterdam, describes as civil disobedience: a resistance that challenges the established and institutionalized forms of authority.141 According to Celikates, this disobedience ‘spread[s] out socially (in terms of participants), geographically (in terms of cities involved), and politically (in terms and the way in which they were formulated).’142 The civil disobedience, or resistance, indeed spread throughout Turkey in 2013, with the occupied public space of the Gezi Park and Taksim Square as the epic centre of the resistance. During the official ten days of the occupation of public space in Istanbul, the resistance increased in large numbers daily. Many of the protesters were visual artists, dancers, musicians, and performance artists, who transformed the public area in an artistic manifestation. Fulya Erdemci, curator of the 13th Istanbul Biennial, described the protests as follows: ‘with an outburst of collective intelligence, humour, and creativity, oppressive mechanism were challenged, opening up public domain as a political public forum in the urban public spaces!’143 This political forum in the urban public
137 Gümüş, 2013: p. 207. 138 Ibid: p. 208. 139 Altay, 2013: p. 201. 140 March 19, 2017. Conversation: Ferda Çağlayan. Istanbul 141 Celikates, 2013: p. 65. 142 Idem. 143 Erdemci, 2013: p. 164. 50 space inhabited around a hundred tents, a first aid and veterinary clinic, a free library (organised by Turuncu ÇadIr),144 free restaurants, an open-air cinema, gardens, and several theatrical settings with a constant presence of performances and spectators.145 According to different publications that have been written on the Gezi Park Protests by art professionals such as Erdemci, but also artists like Başak Ertür, the symbolic historical value of the occupied park and square (on which there is also a statue of Atatürk), that is imbedded in the collective Turkish memory, are an important factor for the emergence of the resistance in 2013.146 The area around Taksim Square had already been the scene of resistance and violent clashes between protesters and the government.147 The symbolic background of the occupied public space contributed to the rise of a protest against the upcoming Islamic power of the AKP. The symbolic value of the place of resistance became even more symbolic in 2013, when barricades were placed in front of the entrances of the Taksim Square and the Gezi Park to protect the public resistance (fig. 7, attachment 2). According to Ertür, the barricades elevated the square and the park
7. Artist unknown. Barricades in Talimhane, Istanbul city centre's recently regenerated hotel district. Photo: Başak Ertür. June, 2013.
144 March 19, 2017. Conversation: Işıl Eğrikavuk. Istanbul. 145 Erdemci, 2013: p. 165. 146 See:
3.2. Tracing the language of resistance during the Gezi Park Protests Art performed an important role in the creation of a visual language during the Gezi Park Protests. Acting as a critique on the power of Erdoğan, visual artworks and performances can be analysed through the three characteristics of performativity (content, context, and the intention of the artist) as explained by Mieke Bal, in order to recognize an artwork as resistance art. In this case: as part of the Turkish resistance against the regime of Erdoğan and the AKP. I want to work again with the distinction between disembodied (repetitive, visual art) and embodied artworks (live, temporal bodily encounters), to create a clearer understanding of the different artistic expressions that could be seen during the ten days of non-violently occupation. The disembodied artworks were an important representation of the ideology of the resistance, because of their repetitive presence in both the occupied monumental space as on the Internet. Murals and graffiti, posters, and cartoons, visual forms which were described by Charles Tripp in the previous chapter as ideal artistic media of resistance because of their anonymous and repetitive character, could be interpreted as part of the resistance during the Gezi Park Protests. The content of these artistic media, described by Erdemci as ‘creative, thought-provoking, and amusing’,151 were mostly designed by cartoonists, what fuelled the resistance with humour.152 Satirical magazines, even before the events in 2013, served for a long
148 Idem. 149 Athanasiou, 2017: p. 689. 150 See:
8. Latuff. #direngeziparki. June 1, 2013. time as the only outlet of open political criticism, according to the Turkish academic Can Altay.153 During the Gezi Park Protests, their cartoons became the dominant media of critical images. Altay mentions the satirical magazines such as Gırgır, Limon, and Leman as the precursors of the magazines Uykurez and Penguen, for which the Gezi Park Protests functioned as a source of inspiration.154 Just like the magazine Penguen, which was sued for publishing a cartoon of Erdoğan (fig. 6), many of the Turkish satirical magazines had a history of political lawsuits against them. These quarrels with the government, and especially the government of the AKP, insisted on a mediated form of censorship which is still operates today. With the Gezi Park Protests, a feeling of freedom and immunity rose, which sparked the outburst of humorous protests for the satirical magazines. During the protests, these humorous images were, next to their publication on paper, spread on the Internet and Social Media such as Twitter and Facebook (fig. 8). Because of the inter-medial repetition of images, cartoons were quickly recognized as the most important factor in the creation of the visual language of the Gezi Park Protests by both the power and the resistance.155 After being spread on the Internet and Social Media, were reintroduced in the urban space in the form of posters and graffiti. This argument does not only refer to
153 Ibid: p. 202. 154 Idem. 155 Bala, Zangl, 2013: p. 454. 53 cartoons, but also to characteristic images and symbols which derived from the resistance. The critical meaning that was given to the content of these images, derived from its context, namely the resistance itself. An example of an image which became a representative symbol resistance was the gasmask, referring to the tear gas attacks by the Turkish police against the protesters. Although little traces of the Gezi Park Protests can be found in Istanbul today, there is a graffiti wall left close to the Taksim Square with images that can be interpreted as references to the protests of 2013 (fig. 9, fig. 10). This recognition of the symbols of resistance functions as the perfect example of the process of performativity, in which the content and context of these artwork perform on the individual memory of the spectator - my memory. The content is interpreted by me as unity, a gasmask on an that is supposed to be free, and an illustration of a figure whose head is a television, while carrying uprooted flowers and a building with a ribbon. The figure can be interpreted as a brainwashed man, carrying the desired shopping mall of Erdoğan that had to be realised on the Taksim Square and Gezi Park. The fact that the images are placed next to each other and thus form each other’s context, strengthens the idea of the performance
9. Artist unknown. Murals referring to the 10. Artist unknown. Graffiti referring Gezi Park Protests. Photo: Marianne de to the Gezi Park Protests. Photo: Zeeuw. March 18, 2017 Marianne de Zeeuw. March 18, 2017
54 of the images a political critique. Although I am fully aware of my own gaze, which is still searching for resistance art in Istanbul, the content and context of these graffiti seem undeniable representations of the Gezi Park Protests of 2013 and thus part of the language of resistance.
11. Ziya Azazi. Performance in the Gezi Park. Photo: Deniz Akgündüz. June 2013.
The symbolic reference of the gasmask was also used in embodied forms of performative art, namely in the dances of Ziya Azazi. The Turkish dancer and choreographer combined symbols of the resistance (in this case, the gasmask) with the characteristic choreography and skirts of the Thurkish whirling dervishes (fig. 11), who derive from the Islamic Sufi order.156 When one visits Turkey today, these centuries old traditional dances, which were performed in order to arrive in a state of religious ecstasy, are still presented as one of the main attractions for tourists. Azazi however, performs this traditional Turkish and Islamic dance routine while wearing a gasmask, which is in general understood as a form of protection against violence. Because of the combination of the Islamic and Turkish reference with the gasmask, the mask functioned as a symbolic protection against Turkish violence. Through the performance of Azazi, the group of the resistance was presented as the victims, the ones who needed protection. We can assume that Erdoğan did not agree with this notion, and would be more satisfied with Foucault’s classification
156 See:
157 See:
163 Weibel, 2013: p. 584. 164 Idem. 165 Celikates, 2013: p. 67. This rule is also valid in Germany. 166 See:
3.3. The aftermath of the Gezi Park Protests After the demonstrations against the cutting of the trees in the Gezi Park and the ten days of occupation of the park, the police violently (and even deathly) ended the resistance. As a result, gatherings at the Taksim Square were prohibited.168 Instead, the government arranged for a special place to demonstrate, at the most Southwest point of Istanbul, where, thus Altay, no one would even notice the demonstrators.169 According to Charles Tripp, the violent way in which the authorities reacted, ‘testifies to their own fear of the power of the imagination in stimulating ideas of resistance and in providing it with a ready repertoire.’170 In other words: the resistance had to be stroked down completely before it could develop its own language. Several actions of the government, such as the reclaiming of public space, indicate an even more severe execution of governmental rules and standards than before the Gezi Park Protests, in order to normalize the disobedient civilians. The first thing that had to be done according to Erdoğan, was to erase the visual language of the Gezi Park Protests as soon as possible. The evidence for this argument can be found in the fact that there are just a few mural paintings left in Istanbul (fig. 9, fig. 10).171 An important conclusion can be made from this quick erasing of the language of resistance: Erdoğan and his followers were after the Gezi Park Protests trained in recognizing resistance art. The images of the cartoons, gasmask, bodily symbols, peppers, books: all were classified as symbols of the madmen, that had to disappear as soon as possible. Although disembodied and embodied symbols of the Gezi Park Protests can
167 Idem. 168 Altay, 2013: p. 204. 169 Idem. 170 Tripp, 2013: p. 6. 171 The café, Urban Café, that is located opposite to the murals and graffiti that is left of the Gezi Park Protests covered another wall with grey paint, which depicted a clear reference to the events of 2013, out of fear for the police. 58 no longer be found in public space, it is impossible to erase the events out of the collective memory of the Turks. Artworks slowly became institutionalized through international exhibitions, and performances (such as the Standing Man) were reproduced in theatrical and museum settings. Also, the spreading of images on the Internet and Social Media made sure the protests were not forgotten. The importance of the Internet in constituting a symbolic language of resistance was also noticed by Erdoğan. In early 2014, the ‘Internet law 5651’ passed parliament, which restricted 40.000 sites and is aimed at full-fledged control over what should remain online accessible by the public.172 In line with this new law was the ability of the government to prevent access to platforms such as Twitter and YouTube in times of terroristic attacks, as I will describe in the next chapter.173 We can discuss if the temporal closures of Social Media is wise, since it causes a lot of suspicion. Finally, the memory of Gezi Park Protests and the use of public space were preserved and researched in the institutional spheres of the 13th Istanbul Biennial. The use of public space as an urban artistic exhibition site was even before the protests in 2013 an object of interest in the contemporary art scene of Istanbul, since it was supposed to be the theme of the 13th Istanbul Biennial, scheduled in the fall of 2013. Curator Fulya Erdemci, cited earlier in this chapter, had presented the theme ‘The Idea of Public Space as a Political Forum’ long before the Gezi Park Protests.174 Recognizing the artistic quality of performances and artworks during the protests, Erdemci and the other organizers of the 13th Istanbul Biennial declared that the artistic Gezi Park Protests were the true manifestation of public space as a political forum.175 In the eyes of the organisation of the biennial, the protesting artists questioned the forms of democratic representation, urban transformations and the role of art within such practices; questions the biennial wanted to research.176 The enormous conceptual and aesthetic effect of the Gezi Park Protests made Erdemci withdraw all plans of exhibiting art in public spaces of Istanbul. However, this did not mean that the 13th Istanbul Biennial was unnecessary. On the contrary. After changing its form and content, the 13th Istanbul Biennial functioned as an important
172 See:
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Because of the abundance of documented information and visual footage of the Gezi Park Protests, it is possible to create a clear understanding of the relation between art, power, and resistance. The ten-day resistance is described by almost all interdisciplinary academics who studied this theme, as well as the Turks themselves, as an exceptional positive and artistic outburst which illuminated the limitations of power. Working again with the concepts of Mieke Bal, resistance art can be recognized because of, firstly, the context of the public space. The public space of the Gezi Park and Taksim Square became a monumental occupied space because of its history and the barricades that protected the protesters. Secondly, the content of the works were clear references to the discontent of the political Islamic at the cost of democratic values and the violent actions of the government. Discussed examples of these contents include the gasmasks, books, peppers, and satirical cartoons. Another important content of the visual resistance, was the symbolic presence of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. The fact that the Atatürk Cultural Centre functioned as the display of the resistance and the portrait of Atatürk on Turkish flags, made Atatürk a strong and safe representation of the democratic ideals the resistance strived for. This is an important interpretation, since it illuminates the big differences between the ideology of Atatürk and the regime of Erdoğan. Finally, the intention of the artists can be found in the fact that they were present during the resistance. While working in the secured, monumental space of the Gezi Park, even after the barricades were broken down by the police, the artists had to be aware of their contributions to the visual language of the resistance. Although Delier argues against the emergence of a new kind of art after the protests, because of the structural and non-spontaneous rise of art during the resistance and because of the fact it disappears as soon as the resistance disappears,177 I strongly believe that the protests of 2013 were the beginning of a changed art climate in both Istanbul and the rest of Turkey. The reason for this
177 See:
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4. (Self-)censorship in the art scene of Istanbul after the failed coup d’état in Turkey in the night of July 15 to 16, 2016, until the presidential referendum of April 16, 2017.
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According to Betsy Udink, the Gezi Park Protests and the visual language of resistance fuelled the fear of Erdoğan of a conspiracy against him and the AKP.178 After the events of 2013, Erdoğan had obtained a full understanding of the ability of art to perform in a critical and mobilizing way and which provided the resistance with a visual language. Charles Tripp states that ‘the effects of the art of resistance can often be assessed through the reactions of those who feel most threatened.’179 In the period after the Gezi Park Protests, this reaction against symbolic images of resistance came from Erdoğan. Erdoğan justified his strict actions after the protests against marginalized groups such as the Kurds, protesters and other publicly opponents of the AKP by the use of his concept ‘Nationale Wil [National Will].’180 Especially after the AKP won the elections of 2014 with 52% and Erdoğan became the president of Turkey, Erdoğan presented himself as the chosen representative of this National Will.181 This National Will did not include the opinion of the protesters of the Gezi Park Protests, or the so-called ‘anti-Turks’.182 According to Shadi Hamid, a specialist on political Islam, president Erdoğan represented indeed the thoughts of half of the Turkish society, who were not put off by the idea of a dominant, Islamic male leader.183 Together with his charisma, successful economic improvements, biography, his position as the underdog (of the dominating ideology of the democracy of Atatürk), pragmatism, conservatism, populism, and Islamic nationalism, ensured the support from his political followers and the successful actions against all of his enemies, thus Hamid.184 In this final chapter, I want to explain the next stage of contemporary art in Istanbul, which is marked by political interferences during turbulent times of several
178 Udink, 2014: p. 300. 179 Tripp, 2013: p. 260. 180 Lagendijk, 2016: p. 90. 181 Ibid: p. 117. 182 Ibid: p. 107. 183 Ibid: p. 102. 184 Ibid: p. 143-149. 62 bomb-attacks in Istanbul and the rest of Turkey, a coup d’état, a state of emergency and campaigns before the presidential referendum of April 16, 2017. I want to analyse the way in which the presence of a resistance and resistance art (as part of the contemporary art scene) can be traced during these turbulent political times, while reflecting on the visual language of resistance that was part of the Turkish collective memory since the protests in 2013. Since there have been numerous (international) incidents between the power of Turkey and the freedom of artistic expression, I will limit myself to my own experiences and obtained information while I lived in Istanbul. The arguments, examples, interpretations, and conclusions in this chapter derive to a large extent from conversations with multiple contemporary artists and art professionals, and contribute to the personal impression of the art scene in Istanbul. It is thus important to understand the following text as a description of the relation between Turkish art, power, and resistance during the turbulent periods after the Gezi Park Protests.
4.1. The potential threat of contemporary art The period after the Gezi Park Protests until the coup d’état of 2016 was an uncertain and threatening time for Turkish politicians, artists, and other citizens. The reason for this uncertainty derived partly from the bloody aftermath of the Gezi Park Protests, which I explained in the previous chapter, but also from several bomb attacks in Turkey. The first bombs exploded in Ankara on October 10, 2015; attacks that caused the deaths of over a 100 civilians and are still not claimed by any terroristic organisation.185 In 2016, Istanbul was also hit by deadly bomb attacks at different central public places: a car bombing close to the touristic Grand Bazar (Fatih), another car bombing on the touristic Sultanahmet Square (where the Blue Mosque is located), and a suicide bombing in the biggest shopping street of Turkey, the Istiklal Caddesi (attachment 1).Either the terroristic organisation The Islamic State (ISIS) or military Kurdish groups, such as the People’s Protection Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel, or YPG), claimed (or were blamed by the government for) the attacks in Istanbul.186 The anxiety in Turkey was thus caused by both a national polarisation of the Turkish people as a result of the protests in 2013 and a terroristic threat.
185 See:
In order to secure and stabilize the nation, president Erdoğan and the AKP introduced a strict no-nonsense political regime that eliminated all early signs of potential threats and resistance.187 In order to do so, the government obtained a monopoly on the news and the Internet Law was reintroduced.188 Another potential threat that had to be controlled was contemporary art, after Erdoğan witnessed its ability to mobilize people as a work of resistance. Evidence for this argument can be found in the closures of several art exhibitions and tumult or violence at art openings, as did happen in and around the Throat-cutters Street (Boğazkesen), in Beyoğlu.189 Another incident of political interference in public space was the closure of the video Finish Up Your Apple, Eve, by Işıl Eğrikavuk, in April, 2016. The video was projected on a giant screen on top of the Marmara Pera Hotel, Beyoğlu, as part of the public art project YAMA.190 Although the police justified their actions with the argument that the screening was a ‘visual pollution of public space’,191 Eğrikavuk argues that the municipality disapproved of the religious connotation in the artwork and feared a response from the government. Contemporary art was thus not yet a threat in the eyes of Erdoğan, but for the organisation who could be held responsible for potential political and misunderstood works of art. The closures of exhibitions and removals of potential offensive artworks by art organisations showed the first traces of a growing fear against the government, and can be as a form of political censorship. A research platform which documented forms of censorship in the Turkish contemporary art scene, is the collective Siyah Bant. Founded in 2011, the group consists of art managers, art writers, and academics working on the freedom of expression.192 Siyah Bant is concerned that many incidents of censorship in the Turkish art world are underreported, and argue that ‘the current censorship mechanisms in Turkey aim to delegitimize and discourage artistic expressions and their circulation.’193 An incident they discussed, for example, was the last-minute cancellation of the Post-Peace exhibition, curated
187 March 19, 2017. Conversation: Ferda Çağlayan. Istanbul 188 Tripp, 2016: p. 125. 189 March 14, 2017. Conversation: Batu Bozoğlu. Istanbul. 190 See:
…over the course of our preparations, Turkey went through a very troubled time. In particular, the tragic incidents in Ankara [bomb attacks] are very fresh in people’s memories. Turkey is still reeling from their emotional aftershocks and remains in a period of mourning. Therefore, many events, including – but not limited to – exhibitions, concerts, and performances, are being cancelled every day.195
The cancellation of the exhibition because of the horrific events of another bombing in Ankara, did not go without protests from the international group of artist who were meant to be exhibiting their work. In an anonymous response, an artist declared:
I, along with the artists in the show, believe this to be a case of political censorship. I fully recognize the tense political atmosphere in Turkey right now, and the reasons why Akbank Sanat may not wish to be associated with the exhibition. But this is also why it is essential to have open discussions and a place for people to engage with different perspectives on issues relevant in the Turkish context and beyond.196
Another response on this incident came from the Turkish activist and artist Belit Sağ, who states on the online platform Index on Censorship that ‘it is exactly for this reason [political censorship], that we have to speak out en masse. I also think that “speaking out” can happen in a variety of ways, just as acts of resistance do.’197 Although the incidents of preventive censorship increased during the years of the bombings, there was thus also a resistance from the contemporary art scene, that responded against the injustice and misinterpretations of art.
194 See:
4.2. The failed coup d’état in Turkey in the night of July 15 to 16, 2016 The no-nonsense regime of the government was not enough to prevent an event that confirmed the anxieties and conspiracy theories of president Erdoğan. In the night of July 15 to 16, 2016, forces of the Turkish army executed a coup d’état against the regime of the AKP. Through the use of FaceTime, Erdoğan motivated the Turkish people to demonstrate against this attack on democracy, referring again to himself as the representative of the National Will.198 The Turks responded massively to this call and stopped the soldiers in Ankara and on the bridges of Istanbul. The night of the coup cost the lives of 240 people, deaths that were immediately blamed on Fethullah Gülen by Erdoğan.199 This accusation, which is supported by a large number of the Turks, caused a witch-hunt on (potential) Gülen followers, but also on Kurds, other critics of Erdoğan, and many academics and lawyers. At the end of 2016, when the biography of Joost Lagendijk was published, already a 100.000 Turks were fired from their position, a number that still increases today.200 The hunt on those who are sympathetic with the coup (who are all generalized as terrorists by Erdoğan) became without any restrictions when a state of emergency was invoked by the power. This state of emergency, which is still existing today, ‘gives the state the right to derogate certain rights, including freedom of movement, expression and association, during times of war or a major public emergency.’201 In other words: the tight grip and violent actions of Erdoğan did no longer need justification. While he argues that he defended the National Will of Turkey, Erdoğan was no longer restricted by the rules, laws, and procedures that were once introduced by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.202 Lagendijk explains Turkey under a state of emergency as ‘een onverdraagzame, niet-vrijzinnige of simpelweg niet-liberale vorm van de democratie [an unbareable, non-freindly or simply non-liberal form of democracy.]’203 It is within this state (that is still active today) contemporary art had to watch its moves even more closely than before.
198 Lagendijk, 2016: p. 163. 199 Ibid: p. 164. Fethullah Gülen and president Erdoğan, once allies, had a hostile attitude towards each other ever since Erdoğan suspected Gülen’s relations with the Kurdish political party Kurdistan Workers’s Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, or PKK) 200 Ibid: p. 167. 201 See:
4.3. Contemporary art under a state of emergency The witch-hunt of the power against its enemies was also felt in the field of contemporary art, as cancellations of exhibitions were followed by the arrest of artists and art professionals.204 Although Tripp argues that ‘the more vigorously the authorities try to put a stop to this [artistic resistance] by arresting artists and singers, closing down plays, raiding art exhibitions and seizing artworks, or blacking out graffiti, the clearer it becomes that they have failed to establish their own version of the truth’,205 this argument does not seem to fit the Turkish contemporary art scene during the state of emergency. An early condemnation against the witch-hunt was made in the form of letter, the Petition of Peace, and signed by thousand academics, journalists, and artists.206 But what was supposed to be a gesture of peace, became a list of potential threats for the government who had to be disposed from their position.207 Instead of spreading symbols and images of resistance, the art world was silenced by the violence of the state. According to Asena Günal, member of the artistic research institution DEPO, the art scene of Istanbul entered a field of self-censorship in which ‘artists are losing their motivation.’208 The self-censorship is enforced by a fear of being recognized by the power as part of a resistance. The word ‘fear’ was used in many conversations with artists and performers in Istanbul during my stay in the city. An eventual resistance during the state of emergency was from the beginning described as terroristic and anti-Turks. The fear of being classified as such and the possibility of being violently imprisoned, prevented almost all forms of publicly displayed images of resistance.
4.3.1. The withdrawal of (performance) art from public space The direct influences of the government on the many museums and galleries that are still open in Istanbul today, is a complicated and sensitive research subject. Although every artist and art professional in the city is aware of the threatening state of emergency, many can continue their work by avoiding political themes that can be
204 See:
209 March 3, 2017. Conversation: Gülhatun Yıldırım. Istanbul. 210 March 10, 2017. Conversation: Ebru Sargın. Istanbul. 211 See:
When we look again at a statement of Tripp, we see that he described the presence of fear on the side of the resistance, but in relation with the fear of power: ‘the formidable apparatus of censorship […] testifies to governments’ obsession about the public expression of dissonant and subversive messages and their fear of the power of art.’213 This is an important notion, since it reminds us of the fact that the actions of Erdoğan during the ongoing state of emergence are indeed powered by his own fears. Erdoğan, on his turn, spreaded fear among the hidden group of resistance. According to Tripp, the fact that fear is felt by people, is the sign that an resistance exists.214 With the visual language of the Gezi Park Protests in mind, we can now try to trace the few artistic disembodied forms of resistance within public space during the state of emergency.
4.3.2. Disembodied traces of resistance Since performance artists have to be careful for interference of the power, because of their embodied presence, and withdrew themselves out of the public space, they are not a part of the small public resistance. In order to analyse the little visual traces of this public resistance, we have to look for anonymous art. According to Tripp, examples of anonymous art are murals/graffiti and posters, as I cited in the second chapter. Although the walls in Istanbul are covered in graffiti, especially in the neighbourhoods Beyoğlu and Kadiköy (the Western-orientated area on the Asian side of Istanbul), only the content of a few depictions seemed to represent a critical attitude towards the power of Erdoğan (attachment 6). However, the intentions of the artists of these anonymous works are absent, since it is very hard to get in contact with graffiti artists in Istanbul. I can thus describe the graffiti Ismail Ata Doğruel and I selected as political through their content and context of the public space, but that are not (yet) part of the language of resistance. At the end of March, finally, a clear sign of visual resistance through graffiti could be recognized in the Istiklal Street. These graffiti appeared just three weeks before the presidential referendum of April 16, 2017, in which the Turks could vote whether there should be a governmental change towards a presidential system, alike the system of the United States, in which president Erdoğan should gain total executive power (evet: the yes-vote), or whether the democratic system and
213 Tripp, 2013: p. 251. 214 Ibid: p. 5. 69 constitution, as formulated by Atatürk in 1923, should remain in its current form (hayır: the no-vote). The reason I am referring to Atatürk as the father of the Turkish democracy, is because it was his portrayal which decorated several wooden walls in the busy street of the centre of Istanbul (attachment 7). The context of the upcoming referendum, but also the important role Atatürk’s portrait plays in the visual language of resistance in Turkey (which is imbedded in the Turkish memory after the Gezi Park Protests), make the graffiti a clear representation of the ‘hayır’ side. An interesting notion is the fact that the walls were painted during the day, under the watch of the police, and all of the graffiti is signed by an artist. The intention of the artist must be a translation of the intention of the municipality, who commissioned these depictions on the monumental space of the area of Taksim. The graffiti was thus created in an open sphere, distracting the people from its political content. When we study the content of the graffiti, more political associations can be traced. One of the graffiti-works depicted the name of Atatürk, written by the use of pens and books (fig. 13). The pens and books can be associated as a reference to the intellectual climate Atatürk stimulated, which was also recognized by Fulya Erdemci in the form of the free library during the Gezi Park Protests. Also, the Turkish word ‘demokrasi [democracy]’ was depicted on several works of graffiti. Finally, the Turkish flag functioned as the background of the portraits of Atatürk. With the visual language of the resistance during the Gezi Park Protests in mind, the ideology of Atatürk represented again the resistance, or hayır-side.
13. Graffiti representing Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. SRCRew. Photo: Bulut Eydoğdu. March 27, 2017.
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Next to the graffiti, the depiction of Atatürk on Turkish flags in intellectual and cultural contexts can be understood as a symbol of the resistance. During the state of emergency, Atatürk was placed many times next to the flags of Erdoğan, who felt like he earned his spot on the flag after sabotaging the coup d’état of 2016, according to Lagendijk.215 Although the portrait of Atatürk has always and everywhere been visible in Turkey, the portrayal of a flag which was visible at the front of the Atatürk Cultural Centre, the billboard of the Gezi Park Protests, were interpreted by the visual artist Bedri Baykam and me as another symbolic form of resistance (fig. 14).216 The flags had disappeared only two hours after they had been displayed. Another example of the flag at a cultural institution, was the Surreya Opera House in Kadiköy, the neighbourhood of Istanbul where most public demonstrations in favour of the hayır- vote took place. The flags of Atatürk or Erdoğan, (although a lot of times combined) could thus be interpreted in certain contexts as a symbolic preference of either the leadership of Atatürk or the leadership of Erdoğan.
14. The flag of Atatürk in front of the Atatürk 15. The flag of Atatürk in front of the Surreya Cultural Centre. Photo: Marianne de Zeeuw. Opera House. Photo: Marianne de Zeeuw. March 17, 2017. March 10, 2017.
4.3.3. EVET versus HAYIR Although a few symbolic images of resistance could be traced within the public space of Istanbul, the direct resistance before the referendum was performed through public statements of ‘hayır’. These public statements differ from a hashtag on Social Media to graffiti of the word itself. Because of the repetitive visualisation of ‘hayır’, the word became the most direct symbol of the resistance. This has also to do with the fact that it was much harder to campaign in favour of the hayır-vote, in contrary to the
215 Lagendijk, 2016: 170. 216 March 19, 2017. Conversation: Bedri Baykam. Istanbul. 71 governmental subsidized evet-campaign, which contributed to a feeling of being a victim.217 The oppressive actions of the government during the state of emergency in combination with the huge propaganda of ‘evet’, made the public display of ‘hayır’ an act of danger and resistance. A lot of artists and other citizens of Istanbul sensed this danger, which adds to the already existing fear in Turkey and prevented many people from voting against the governmental change.218 However, this danger did not stop several Turkish parties and municipalities to express themselves, which created a battle between the performative words ‘evet’ and ‘hayır’ in Istanbul (attachment 8).219
16. HAYIR. Artist unknown. Photo: 17. HAYIR. Artist unknown. Photo: Pepe Pepe Mode On. April 3, 2017. Mode On. April 6, 2017. While the side of the evet-camp expressed themselves through national propaganda, flyers, posters, and occasional mural expressions (cover photo), the resistance against this side could be traced in different neighbourhoods of Istanbul. In the weeks before the referendum, demonstrations and street campaigns decorated the streets of Kadiköy. Also, the word appeared on many walls and posters throughout the area (attachment 8), sometimes quickly written, other times in colourful font styles of graffiti (fig. 16, fig. 17), the repetitive use of the word performed as a form of civil disobedience. Other neighbourhoods also used ‘hayır’ in expressing their preferred outcome of the resistance by the use of giant banners and
217 See:
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The turbulent period after the Gezi Park Protests in Istanbul was marked by several bombings, a bloody coup d’état, and the strict regime of Erdoğan, who declared Turkey to be in a state of emergency. Within this period, a decrease of freedom of speech, press and art and the rise of political- and self-censorship can be traced within the Republic of Turkey. Different incidents, imprisonments and cancellations of exhibitions within the field of art, can be understood as a confirmation of the fact that Erdoğan also felt threatened by the power of art. After witnessing the demonstrations during the Gezi Park Protests, Erdoğan added contemporary art to his list of enemies of the Turkish nation. Especially under the state of emergency (a state the nation is still in today), contemporary art entered a time in which they had to be aware of the changing limitations of the power, in order to not be misunderstood as a work of resistance art.
220 Anonymous artists, 2017: p. 5-12. 221 See:
Although few visual symbols of resistance could be traced during the discussed period, especially in comparison to the Gezi Park Protests, there are still anonymous and repetitive images traceable. Just like the resistance art during the protests of 2013, the resistance art of the period until the referendum can also be connected to the political ideology of Atatürk. This argument can be explained by two important images of the resistance. First, the portrayal of Atatürk returned in the centre of Istanbul on different media. The most important were the graffiti paintings on the Istiklal Street and the flags which were (illegally) hung up at cultural institutions, such as the façade of the Atatürk Cultural Centre. The combination of the content and the context resulted in an intellectual and cultural understanding and a symbolic reference towards the political ideology of Atatürk. In the referendum, this ideology was threatened to disappear. The portrayal of Atatürk can thus also be connected to the hayır-outcome of the referendum. Secondly, the world ‘hayır’ itself became the most important visual display of the resistance. The word symbolised far more than just the word ‘no’, a word which Erdoğan wished see erased out of public space. However, the fact that the word could be easily reproduced through digital media, graffiti, posters, banners, and writings on the walls were the evidence of a silent and anonymous group of resistance. The outcome of the referendum, which was won by the evet-vote with 51,2 % illustrates just how big this group was.
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Conclusion
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In this research, I tried to create a broad understanding of the relation between art, power, and resistance in the public spaces of Istanbul. From the first chapter onwards, I wanted to connect the three concepts, as I explained according to the theories of Michel Foucault, with the political democratic ideology of the instigator and first president of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and with the political Islamic ideology of the current representation of the power of Turkey, president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. As I highlighted in the first chapter by researching the relation between art and power in Turkey, the ideologies of the two presidents represent contradicting standards and values, which caused several violent clashes in the relatively short history of Turkey. I want to recite the Turkish historian Richard Tapper, as I did in the second chapter, who states that the clashes can be explained as ‘a simple conceptual opposition […] between “republican” (= modern, secular, European) and between “Islamic” (= backward, decadent, Ottoman).’222 However this statement is mostly true, it also indicates a negative description of the power of Erdoğan and his ruling AKP. The characterizations of the power of Erdoğan as backward, decadent, Ottoman, and Islamic are not considered in a negatively in the eyes of half of the Turkish people. The problematic division between the Turkish people became visible after the presidential referendum on April 16, 2017, in which 51,2% of the Turks voted for a change in the constitution in order to exchange the democratic system, as was constituted by Atatürk in 1923, with a presidential system. Although the motivations for voting either pro (evet) or against (hayır) a change within the political system in times of political instability and terroristic attacks can derive from many different convictions and ideals for the future, the referendum can be considered as a symbolic choice between the ideology of Atatürk and that of Erdoğan. In line with this idea, I can now answer the question I asked myself at the start of this research, namely if, and how, we can recognize resistance art in the public space of Istanbul during the turbulent months after the failed coup d’état in the night of July 15 to 16, 2016, in Turkey, until the Turkish presidential referendum of April 16, 2017.
222 Tapper, 1991: p. 7. 75
When I used the term resistance art within the context of the past decade of Istanbul, this term can be explained as a combination of being a subgenre of the Turkish contemporary art scene, which developed itself in an autonomous way from the ‘60s onwards, and within a theoretical frame. This theoretical frame covers the big question how art historians (and other interdisciplinary researchers who are interested with the relation between art and power) can recognize art as a resistance. Resistance artworks can be understood in line with the theory of Mieke Bal on performativity. According to Bal, all artworks can be given a certain individual interpretation because of how the content, context, and the intention of the artist perform on the spectator. When a critical potential within an artwork is recognized by the interpretations of different spectators, which includes my own interpretation within this research, the artwork can perform as a form of resistance art, while illuminating and transgressing the limitations of power. Power and resistance are, according to Foucault, opposite concepts that enforce each other in certain structures. Since Erdoğan represents the power, Atatürk, who represent the opposite ideals of Erdoğan, can be connected with the resistance during and after the Gezi Park Protests in Turkey. The content and context of different media that are part of the visual language of resistance strengthens this idea. During the humorous and free feeling of the Gezi Park Protests, the context of the historical space of the park, the Taksim Square and the Atatürk Cultural Centre, combined with symbolic images of the gasmask, books and flags of Atatürk can be understood as a symbolic representation of the ideology of Atatürk. I want to highlight the importance of the Gezi Park Protests again, since it provided a visual language for later forms of resistance. Although both embodied and disembodied resistance art was very present in the occupied public spaces of Istanbul during the Gezi Park Protests, this was not the case in the period between the coup d’état in the night of July 15, to 16, 2016, until the presidential referendum in 2017, a period in which the Turkish nation is under a state of emergency. I assumed that the presidential referendum would again spark a vivid resistance within the contemporary art scene, especially because of the violent actions of the no-nonsense regime of Erdoğan (justified by the idea that he present the National Will) since the referendum offered a chance for the other half of the Turkish population to speak out for a change in the political situation of opportunity. The absence of this massive resistance is due to the state of fear and uncertainty in
76 which the art world now finds itself. It is safer to avoid potential political themes, by a withdrawal of public space, or censor works or exhibitions that could be potential offensive in the eyes of the power. According to Foucault, a resistance is only possible within the structures of power. When there is no longer a resistance, he speaks of a domination instead of a healthy form of democratic power. Although there were still few disembodied forms of critique traceable within the field of resistance art, I want to conclude that the regime of Erdoğan is evolving towards a state of domination, but is not yet arrived this state. The visual resistance during the state of emergency could again be connected to the opposition between Atatürk and Erdoğan. The symbolic use of the word ‘hayır’ by different districts within Istanbul, represent their sympathy for the ideology of Atatürk. The same way worked for the group who supported Erdoğan. A visual (digital) battle between ‘evet’ and ‘hayır’ could be traced within the public space of Istanbul, while it forced the Turkish people to pick again a side of the ongoing battle between the two dominant political ideologies in Turkey: the Kemalists or the Tayyipists?
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Although the referendum was won by Erdoğan and his ideals, it is impossible that the resistance of the past decades has immediately disappeared. On the contrary, I can also argue in favour of the idea that with the outcome of the referendum, the resistance against the growing domination of Erdoğan re-entered the public transcript. Evidence of this argument can be found in the successful Justice March, organised by the leader of the main opposition and Kemalist CHP, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. Members of the party march together with a big mass march from Ankara to Istanbul to ask for justice for imprisoned members of their political party, while Erdoğan is watching them closely and describes them as terrorists, just like he describes many others who do not fit his ideals of the National Will. Although my research ended with the presidential referendum, the march and ongoing clashes between Erdoğan and the Kemalist opposition indicate that in the future of Turkey new or reproduced images and symbols, recognizable as resistance art, can be traced.
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Video TEAR GAS AND GRAFFITI. Reg. Sabine Küper-Büsch, Thomas Büsch. ZDF, 2014. Prod. Ralf Scherer. Vimeo.
Conversations
February 21, 2017. Ismail Ata Doğruel (Performistanbul). Muaf Café, Beyoğlu, Istanbul.
February 28, 2017. Asena Günal (DEPO). DEPO, Beyoğlu, Istanbul.
March 3, 2017. Gülhatun Yıldırım (Performistanbul). SNTRL Café, Beyoğlu, Istanbul.
March 10, 2017. Ebru Sargın (Performistanbul). Urban Café, Beyoğlu, Istanbul.
March 14, 2017. Batu Bozoğlu (Performistanbul). Kadiköy, Istanbul.
March 16, 2017. Gökhan Tun (Istructor Bilgi Media). Trump Tower, Şişli, Istanbul.
March 19, 2017. Ferda Çağlayan (art historian – sculptures in public space). Tünel Kahvesi, Beyoğlu, Istanbul.
March 19, 2017. Işıl Eğrikavuk (performance artist). Muaf Café, Beyoğlu, Istanbul.
March 19, 2017. Bedri Baykam (visual artist and activist). Piramid Sanat, Beyoğlu, Istanbul.
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Images Cover: Yeni Camii ve ‘Evet’. Photo: Marianne de Zeeuw. March 13, 2017. Photograph, Fatih, Istanbul.
Fig. 1. Feyhaman Duran. Portrait (Atatürk). 1937. Oil on canvas, ca. 120 x 75 cm. Istanbul University Feyhaman Duran Collection. Sakıp Sabancı Müzesi, Istanbul.
Fig. 2. Haci Mehmet Güner. Çamlıca Camii. 2017. Detail photo: photographer unknown. Takvim.
Fig. 3. Mehmet Askoy. Statue of Humanity. 2006-2011. Marble, ca. 3000 x 500m. Kars. (Demolished in 2011).
Fig. 4. Bedri Baykam. Box of Democracy. 1987. Mixed media on plywood, ca. 220 x 110 x 110 cm. Private collection Bedri Baykam. Piramid Sanat, Istanbul.
Fig. 5. Musa Kart. Don't create tension... We promised, we will solve it. 2004. Cartoon. Cümhuriyet, 2004.
Fig. 6. Several cartoonists of Penguen. The World of Tayyip. Penguen 2005. Cartoon. February 24, No. 127, 2005.
Fig. 7. Artist unknown. Barricades in Talimhane, Istanbul city centre's recently regenerated hotel district. Photo: Başak Ertür. June, 2013. Taksim Square, Istanbul. http://www.ibraaz.org/essays/71#author230
Fig. 8. Latuff. #direngeziparki. June 1, 2013. Cartoon. Twitter.
Fig. 9. Artists unknown. Murals referring to the Gezi Park Protests. 2013. Photo: Marianne de Zeeuw, March 18, 2017. Beyoğlu, Istanbul.
Fig. 10. Artist unknown. Graffiti referring to the Gezi Park Protests. 2013. Photo: Marianne de Zeeuw, March 18, 2017. Beyoğlu, Istanbul.
Fig. 11. Ziya Azazi. Performance in the Gezi Park. 2013. Photo: Deniz Akgündüz. June, 2013.Gezi Park, Istanbul.
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Fig. 12. Erdem Gündüz. Duran Adam. June 17, 2013. Photo: photographer unknown. June 17, 2013. Taksim Square, Istanbul.
Fig. 13. SRCrew. Graffiti representing Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. March 26-27, 2017. Photo: Bulut Eydoğdu. March 27, 2017. Istiklal Street, Istanbul.
Fig. 14. Artist unknown.The flag of Atatürk in front of the Atatürk Cultural Centre. Photo: Marianne de Zeeuw. March 17, 2017. Taksim Square, Istanbul.
Fig. 15. Artist unknown. The flag of Atatürk in front of the Surreya Opera House. Photo: Marianne de Zeeuw. March 10, 2017. Kadiköy, Istanbul.
Fig. 16. Artist unknown. HAYIR. Spring 2017. Photo: Pepe Mode On. April 3, 2017. Kadiköy, Istanbul. Instagram. (Picture is deleted.)
Fig. 17. Artist unknown. HAYIR. Spring 2017. Photo: Pepe Mode On. April 7, 2017. Kadiköy, Istanbul. Instagram. (Picture is deleted.)
Fig. 18. Cartoonist of Penguen. Referandum Cartoon. Penguen. Spring 2017. Cartoon. Spring 2017, No. 144.
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Attachment 1 Map of the centre of Istanbul
Source original map:
Legend box (numbers in order of their appearance)
Red block Neighbourhood of Istanbul 1 Blue mosque 6 Gezi Park 2 Çamlıca Camii 7 Taksim Square 3 DEPO 8 Istiklal Cadessi 4 Piramid Art Sanat 5 Istanbul Modern
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Attachment 2 Artistic barricades during the Gezi Park Protests
Source:
AKM (Atatürk Cultural Centre), 10th June 2013, the day before the state repossessed Taksim Square. Başak Ertür. June 10, 2013.
Barricades in Talimhane, Istanbul city centre's recently regenerated hotel district. Başak Ertür. June, 2013.
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There were close to 15 barricades lined up on Inonu Street in Gumussuyu, one of the main avenues leading into Taksim Square. Başak Ertür. June, 2013.
İnönü Street: Barricade with a view, named after Abdullah Cömert, first loss of the resistance. Başak Ertür. June, 2013.
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Attachment 3 The Lady in the Red Dress
Source:
The Lady in the Red Dress. Photo: Osman Orsal. May 28, 2013. Istanbul.
The Lady in the Red Dress. Osman. Photo: unknown photographer. 2013. Istanbul.
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The Lady in the Red Dress. Photo: unknown photographer. 2013. Istanbul.
The Lady in the Red Dress. Artist unknown. Photo: unknown photographer. 2013. Istanbul.
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The Lady in the Red Dress. Taha Alkan. June, 2013. Drawing. Cover NTV Tarih 54.
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Attachment 4 The Atatürk Cultural Centre as the billboard of the Gezi Park Protests
Source:
Protesters gather during a demonstration at Taksim Square. Photo: photographer unknown. June 9, 2013. Istanbul.
Translation of texts and posters (by Bulut Eydoğdu):
Sevişe sevişe kazanacağız: We will win by having sex İsyan: Uprising Yazacak yer yok amk: Fuck, there is no place to write İlkten yakıyor ama sonra alışıyor insan: It burns at the beginning but then we get used to it [tear gas] Üniversite ayakta Tayyip istifa: University is on up rise, Tayyip resign Yaşasın devrim ve sosyalizm: Long live revolution and socialism Şimdi anarşizm zamanı: It is time for anarchism O.ç. Tayyip: motherfucker Tayyip Fabrikalar, tarlalar, siyasi iktidar her şey emeğin olacak: Factories, farms, political power, everything will be for labourers
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Attachment 5 The face of Atatürk on Turkish flags during the Gezi Park Protests
Source:
Protesters on Taksim Square. Photo: photographer unknown. June 2013. Istanbul.
Source:
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An anti-government protester holds a Turkish national flag with a portrait of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey, on it during a demonstration in Ankara. Photo: Umit Bektas / Reuters. June 2, 2013. Ankara.
Tear gas surrounds a protestor holding a Turkish flag with a portrait of the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, as he takes part in protests against the Turkish Prime Minister and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Ankara. Photo: Adem Altan/AFP/Getty Images. June 1, 2013. Ankara.
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Thousands of people walk on Istiklal Street holding Turkish flags during a demonstration against the conservative government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul. Photo: Tolga Bozoglu / EPA. June 2, 2013. Istanbul.
A man is hit by a water cannon during a protest against Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in central Ankara. Photo: Umit Bektas / Reuters. June 1, 2013. Ankara.
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A demonstrator waves Turkey's national flag as he sits on a monument during a protest in central Ankara. Photo: Umit Bektas / Reuters. June 2, 2013. Ankara.
Attachment 6 The political potential of graffiti in public space, Istanbul
Source: Photographs by Marianne de Zeeuw.
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Don’t listen, don’t feel, don’t talk, don’t look. Photo: Marianne de Zeeuw. March 2, 2017. Beyoglu, Istanbul.
Noluyo! [What’s happening!] Photo: Marianne de Zeeuw. March 2, 2017. Beyoglu, Istanbul.
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Milletçe Alkışlıyoruz - we, as a nation, applause (this logo was used in the previous election by the opposition party in order to highlight the absurdity of the events done by ruling party). Photo: Marianne de Zeeuw. March 2, 2017. Beyoglu, Istanbul.
Bahar Isyancıdır - spring is rebellious (it actually refers to the Gezi Park Protests). Photo: Marianne de Zeeuw. March 2, 2017. Beyoglu, Istanbul.
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The time is now. Pepe Mode On. Photo: Marianne de Zeeuw. March 2, 2017. Beyoglu, Istanbul.
Choose your side. Met. Photo: Marianne de Zeeuw. March 2, 2017. Beyoglu, Istanbul.
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I don’t like Erdoğan. Unknown. Photo: Marianne de Zeeuw. March 2, 2017. Beyoglu, Istanbul.
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Attachment 7 An ode to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in the Istiklal Street, March 2017, Istanbul.
Source: Photographs by Bulut Eydoğdu.
All pictures: Graffiti representing Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Graffiti artists: Pepe Mode On, Mr. Besk. Cash, 34 Scar, Costarica, and others. Photo: Bulut Eydoğdu. March 27, 2017. Beyoglu, Istanbul.
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Attachment 8 EVET versus HAYIR
Source: Photographs by Marianne de Zeeuw.
Prime minister Binali Yıldırım represents EVET. Photo: Marianne de Zeeuw. March 10, 2017. Tophane, Beyoglu, Istanbul.
Political poster of Osmanlı Ocakları, who supports president Erdoğan. Photo: Marianne de Zeeuw. March 10, 2017. Tophane, Beyoğlu, Istanbul.
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Yeni Camii ve EVET. Photo: Marianne de Zeeuw. March 13, 2017. Fatih, Istanbul.
EVET. Photo: Marianne de Zeeuw. March 6, 2017. Beyoğlu, Istanbul.
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HAYIR. Photo: Marianne de Zeeuw. March 10, 2017. Kadiköy, Istanbul.
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HAYIR. Photo: Marianne de Zeeuw. March 10, 2017. Kadiköy, Istanbul.
HAYIR. Photo: Marianne de Zeeuw. March 10, 2017. Kadiköy, Istanbul.
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HAYIR. Photo: Marianne de Zeeuw. March 10, 2017. Kadiköy, Istanbul.
HAYIR. Photo: Marianne de Zeeuw. March 10, 2017. Kadiköy, Istanbul.
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HAYIR. Photo: Marianne de Zeeuw. March 10, 2017. Kadiköy, Istanbul.
EVET or EVET? Artist unknown. Photo: Pepe Mode On. Spring 2017, Istanbul.
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Referendum Cartoon. Penguen. Cartoon. Spring 2017, No. 144. Twitter.
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