Izmir opens new art center backed by Centre Pompidou |
Welcome back to AL-MONITOR Istanbul.
This week’s edition comes with a distinct French accent. In Izmir, the newly opened Lucien Arkas Art Center begins its program with Sonia and Robert Delaunay and a long-term partnership with Paris' Centre Pompidou. In Istanbul, Bardot leans further into French brasserie classics under chef Mert Seran. And at Bomontiada, Ara Guler heads to Cannes, capturing the Riviera and its celebrities in the 1960s.
Elsewhere, the city stays busy in its usual fashion: Fahrettin Orenli dissects urban suffocation at .artSumer, Mutlu Aksu turns daily life into staged unease at Galeri 77, and CI Bloom gathers the city’s galleries under one roof.
If you want to receive this newsletter or our other new weekly City Pulse newsletters — for Doha, Dubai and Riyadh — sign up here.
Nazlan (@NazlanEr on X)
P.S. Have tips on Istanbul’s culture scene? Send them my way at nertan@al-monitor.com.
Also, don’t forget to follow us on Instagram: @citypulsealm
1. Leading the week: Seventh art stop in Izmir
Arkas Mistral’s Delaunay exhibition (Lucien Arkas Art Center)
Izmir’s cultural map expands with the opening of the Lucien Arkas Art Center, launched on April 5 at Mistral Izmir. It becomes the seventh venue in Arkas Sanat’s network, which has maintained a sustained art route across the city since 2011.
Founded by Lucien Arkas, head of Arkas Holding and an art collector, the center is conceived as a multidisciplinary space, bringing together exhibitions, learning programs and different forms of artistic production. It opens with “Sonia & Robert Delaunay: The Invention of Modern Color,” a concise introduction to the French avant-garde couple who helped shift early 20th-century painting toward abstraction through color, light and rhythm.
The opening gathered figures from both Turkey and France, including French Ambassador to Turkey Isabelle Dumont and Laurent Le Bon, president of the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
The project is anchored in a five-year partnership with the Centre Pompidou, which will bring two exhibitions a year from its collection to Izmir.
“I was born and raised in Izmir,” Arkas said at the opening. “I believe this city should be intertwined with art not only through its past, but also through its present and future.”........