16th Istanbul Biennial - The Seventh Continent

Curated by the eminent art historian and curator, Nicolas Bourriaud, more than 220 artworks by 56 artists and art collectives will guide the visitors into the new territory of the seventh continent by documenting the landscape of anthropocene, rediscovering ancient forces or knowledge, proposing alternative versions of history and exploring our contemporary societies. The exhibition will try to understand how the anthropocene has modified our modes of perception and the way artists produce forms and develop meanings.

The Istanbul Biennial will be presented in three spectacular locations: Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University Istanbul Museum of Painting and Sculpture, the 17,700 sq metres former warehouse on the waterfront in the Tophane district, the Pera Museum in the heart of the city, and Büyükada Island, the largest of the Princes’ Islands in the Sea of Marmara.

Artists showing are:

At Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University Istanbul Museum of Painting and Sculpture: Deniz Aktaş, Özlem Altın, Jonathas de Andrade, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Ozan Atalan, Radcliffe Bailey, Rebecca Belmore, Dora Budor, Johannes Büttner, En Man Chang, Mariechen Danz, Elmas Deniz, David Douard, Simon Fujiwara, Claudia Martínez Garay, Anna Bella Geiger, Pakui Hardware (Ugnius Gelguda & Neringa Černiauskaitė), Eloise Hawser, Marguerite Humeau, Suzanne Husky, Rashid Johnson, Feral Atlas Collective, Eva Kot'átková, Agnieszka Kurant, Tala Madani, Jared Madere, Turiya Magadlela, Ursula Mayer, Güneş Terkol & Güçlü Öztekin, Mika Rottenberg, Max Hooper Schneider, Ylva Snöfrid, Jennifer Tee, Suzanne Treister, Ambera Wellmann, Haegue Yang, Müge Yılmaz, Phillip Zach

At Pera Museum: Anzo [José Iranzo Almonacid], Pia Arke, Charles Avery, Norman Daly, Ernst Haeckel, Evru/Zush, Sanam Khatibi, Melvin Moti, Glauco Rodrigues, Luigi Serafini, Paul Sietsema, Simon Starling, Piotr Uklański

At Büyükada: Monster Chetwynd, Glenn Ligon, Armin Linke, Ursula Mayer, Hale Tenger, Andrea Zittel

In addition to the two-month-long exhibition, the biennial will also present the city with a permanent work with the support of the 2007-2026 Biennial Sponsor Koç Holding. The internationally acclaimed British artist, Monster Chetwynd, has been commissioned to create a permanent new sculptural children’s playground called Gorgon’s Head Playground, located in the city’s Maçka Sanat Park.

The biennial will host various talks, film screenings, concerts and performances as part of its free public programme. Among the participants of the public programme which takes the relationship between the fields of art, ecology and anthropology as its focal point are prominent philosophers, scientists and artists who will present different approaches to these fields.

16th Istanbul Biennial is organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) and sponsored by Koç Holding.