Five exhibitions shaping the 2026 art conversation |
Season’s greetings from Al-Monitor Istanbul.
As we step into the new year, it has been 14 months since the first edition of Istanbul City Pulse was launched, alongside its sisters in Dubai, Doha and Riyadh. Every week, we have tried to be your eyes and ears on the obvious and the overlooked: headline moments and quiet openings, established names and emerging artists and chefs, occasionally venturing beyond Istanbul’s city limits. This week, we turn to the holidays, focusing on trends that will carry from 2025 into 2026, a new restaurant opening and an agenda for welcoming the New Year in Turkey.
Looking back, this newsletter would be far less enjoyable without the ideas, feedback and steady encouragement of three women who know Istanbul intimately and care deeply about its stories: Al-Monitor Chief Correspondent Amberin Zaman, Associate Editor Ezgi Akin and Editor Souhir Mzali. Our New Year resolution is simple: Expect more female voices in the months ahead, from Istanbul and beyond.
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Thanks for reading,
Nazlan (@NazlanEr on X)
P.S. Have tips on Istanbul’s culture scene? Send them my way at nertan@al-monitor.com.
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1. Leading the week: Top Five Exhibitions from 2025 to 2026
The haunted garden of "Folia"(Nazlan Ertan)
As end-of-year plans are made and next year’s art calendar quietly opens up, here is a short list worth holding on to. These exhibitions are not only strong in their own right; together, they capture the dominant currents of the moment: Environmental anxiety and dystopia sit alongside questions of migration, memory and belonging, while food and nature emerge as shared languages of survival and intimacy. Expect to see more of the food-art link in 2026, says art curator Feride Celik, whose predictions on the 2026 art world will be in the first issue of 2026.
"Folia": At the Abdulmecid Efendi Mansion, “Folia” unfolds as a cultivated garden with a nervous edge. Nearly 100 artists blur interior and exterior, beauty and unease in a show that plays on the dual meaning of the word as both leaf and madness. Nature here is lush, seductive and faintly threatening. On view through March 1, 2026.
Collective Memory: IBB Collections: At