Kentsel Dönüşüm ve Güncel Sanat: İstanbul’da Yaşanan Kentsel Dönüşümü Sanat Eserleri Üzerinden Okumak

Kentsel Dönüşüm ve Güncel Sanat

Abstract

Neoliberal policies, which strengthened their influence with the end of the 20th century, transformed cities into consumable commodities, and thus the cities faced the risk of entirely losing their unique nature. This rapid structural and cultural transformation led to a series of social and spatial divisions including inequality and polarization. At the same time, this process has assessed dynamics of the cultural environment and has created its own culture industry. Limiting its scope to Istanbul, this essay focuses on artworks that problematize urban transformation that accelerated as a result of neoliberalism. It is aimed to understand the relationship between the practices of artists and urban policies, to see what kind of productions are carried out in the face of urban transformation, what tendency is displayed, the collaborations and the solutions put forward. In this study, the historical process of urban policies and the structure and institutionalization of the contemporary art examined in three periods and the artworks produced in this process were investigated. These works have features such as focusing on the periphery; making different languages, hybrid cultures, minorities visible; inventing new collaborations and projects to support economic and legal processes; keeping a memory record, setting the groundwork for new possibilities and fictions based on Rancière. On the other hand, it has been observed that contemporary art, which has been institutionalized through private companies, is at the heart of the urban transformation.