The exhibition, 'Roots and Growth—Contemporary Art from Turkey', on show at the Museum of Islamic and Near Eastern Cultures in Beer Sheva, Israel, until 15 February 2020, features a mix of contemporary and traditional Turkish art. The following is an abridged exhibition review by Alberto Levi from HALI 201 – coming soon!
'Early Anatolian kilims have always appeared to me as complex works of woven architecture. Essentially composed of blocks of colour in varying densities resulting in a meticulous network of geometric forms, the meaning of which is the subject of a never-ending debate, these kilims appeal to us as being carriers of a code system that invests them with a cultic aura.
Installation view showing a northeast Anatolian niche kilim from the early 19th century (left) and a Central Anatolian kilim woven before 1800 (right)
That is why seeing the nine Anatolian kilim masterworks from the private collections of Mark Berkovich and Rafi Gidron installed in a former mosque was a particularly enlightening experience. Built in 1906 as part of a group of Ottoman government buildings and bearing at its entrance the tughra of Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1842-1918), the structurehad been abandoned until Israel’s High Court ruled that it should become a museum devoted to the art of Islam. What resulted is The Museum of Islamic and Near Eastern Cultures, located in the biblically important southern Israeli city of Beer Sheva.
