Gülsün Karamustafa. Chronographia

Gülsün Karamustafa (b. 1946, lives and works in Istanbul) is one of the most important artists of the second half of the 20th century in Turkey, where her practice has had a major influence on younger generations of artists since the 1990s. Following the first retrospective of her work at SALT Istanbul in 2013, the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin is now presenting the first comprehensive survey of Karamustafa’s art to be shown in a museum outside Turkey. Spread over 1,000 square metres of exhibition space, Gülsün Karamustafa. Chronographia presents around 110 works dating from the 1970s to the present day.

Gülsün Karamustafa gained international recognition for her contributions to the 3rd and 4th Istanbul Biennials in the early 1990s, and since then her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions and biennials around the world. Her oeuvre spans four decades and encompasses a variety of media, including painting, installation, performance and video. Exploring themes such as migration, politically-driven nomadism, pop culture, feminism and gender, Karamustafa often critically examines the traditional Western view of the Middle East. Since the immediate post-Cold War era, she has been investigating how politics, religion and history influence everyday life in an increasingly globalised world.

The rigour and consistency with which Gülsün Karamustafa explores and frequently revisits these themes is reflected in the way she weaves the individual works together to form a dense network of reference and association. In the exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof, which has been prepared in close collaboration with the artist, these ramifications and connections across time are emphasised by the fact that the presentation is not chronological; it has been arranged thematically to create a dialogue between multiple artworks. This mode of display highlights the broad scope and continuing relevance of Karamustafa’s singular practice.

Curator: Melanie Roumiguière
Curatorial assistance: Veronika Riesenberg
Curatorial advisor: Ovul O. Durmusoglu 

To accompany the exhibition, a comprehensive monograph on Gülsün Karamustafa is being published by Verlag für Moderne Kunst in July 2016, with contributions by Meltem Ahiska, Ovul O. Durmusoglu, Gülsün Karamustafa, Marion van Osten and Melanie Roumiguière.

The exhibition is supported by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds (Capital Cultural Fund in Berlin).
The publication is supported by Saha Association.