Dream and Reality Modern and Contemporary Women Artists from Turkey

With the exhibition "Dream and Reality-Modern and Contemporary Women Artists from Turkey", İstanbul Modern aimed to show Turkey’s social and cultural transformation as seen through the eyes of female artists. The exhibition, centered on the position of women in the art world, offered a new, alternative perspective on the sociocultural history of Turkey.

The exhibition, which could act as a summary of modern and contemporary Turkish art, linked seventy-four artists: including pioneering women artists about whose lives and works we know very little and whose names were almost forgotten; the rediscovered moderns; and women artists who for the last four decades shaped the contemporary art scene with their intellectual attitudes and practical actions.

The exhibition took its title from the 1891 novel Dream and Reality co-authored by Fatma Aliye and Ahmet Midhat. This romance novel features many of the period’s symbolic characteristics; the first part, called "Dream", was written by Fatma Aliye and the second part, which emphasized reality, by Ahmet Midhat. Fatma Aliye was featured on the cover of the novel with the pen name “A Woman,” therefore only indicating her gender, whereas the author of the “Reality” section is male.

Taking the novel Dream and Reality as its reference point, the exhibition investigated how women artists turned their dreams into reality and conveys, through visual examples, the relationships women artists established with the different stratum of reality through their productions. It also explored the place of these relationships in today’s contemporary art culture.

Curators: Fatmagül Berktay, Levent Çalıkoğlu, Zeynep İnankur, Burcu Pelvanoğlu

Artists: Mihri Müşfik, Melek Celal Sofu, Belkıs Mustafa, Güzin Duran, Nazlı Ecevit, Fahrelnissa Zeid, Aliye Berger, Bedia Güleryüz, Sabiha Rüştü Bozcalı, Nermin Faruki, Sabiha Ziya Bengütaş, Hale Asaf, Maide Arel, Şükriye Dikmen, Eren Eyüboğlu, Semiha Berksoy, Füreya, Frumet Tektaş, Zerrin Bölükbaşı, Leyla Gamsız, Naile Akıncı, Tiraje Dikmen, Bilge Civelekoğlu Friedlaender, Bilge Alkor, Candeğer Furtun, Tülay Tura Börtecene, Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye, Füsun Onur, Nil Yalter, Tomur Atagök, Neş’e Erdok, İpek Duben, Nur Koçak, Nevhiz, Seyhun Topuz, Meriç Hızal, Nancy Atakan, Gülsün Karamustafa, Canan Beykal, Ayşe Erkmen, Azade Köker, Fatma Tülin, Hale Arpacıoğlu, Canan Tolon, İnci Eviner, Kezban Arca Batıbeki, Handan Börüteçene, Canan Dağdelen, Hale Tenger, Selda Asal, Selma Gürbüz, Aydan Murtezaoğlu, Gül Ilgaz, Şükran Moral, Arzu Başaran, Gülay Semercioğlu, Mürüvvet Türkyılmaz, Neriman Polat, Canan, Nezaket Ekici, Esra Ersen, Ebru Özseçen, Elif Çelebi, Leyla Gediz, Bengü Karaduman, Aslı Sungu, İnci Furni, Nilbar Güreş, Seda Hepsev, Ceren Oykut, Ekin Saçlıoğlu, Gözde İlkin, Güneş Terkol, AtılKunst