Sculpted Silence and Rooftop Light
Mid-June brings long evenings and a kind of golden laziness to Istanbul. This week felt expansive—more space in the streets, in the sky, and in my mind. I monsters and marks, sat under bougainvillea with iced coffee, and wandered into a museum garden that felt like another country.
“Graceful Elegant Beasts, Zilberman Gallery
May 22 – July 26, 2025
I knew, even before stepping inside, that this exhibition would require a different kind of attention — not just sight or understanding, but the kind of patience reserved for things that whisper rather than shout. Larry Muñoz’s Graceful Elegant Beasts at Zilberman is an essay made of objects, a meditation on the tension between what we discard and what we remember. Or maybe more accurately, it’s about the ethics of what we choose to frame — what becomes exhibit, and what remains ghost.
His title is a layered provocation: “graceful,” “elegant,” and “beasts” — three strata of experience or judgment, shifting between cosmological, aesthetic, and personal. Muñoz doesn’t resolve these tensions. He holds them, lets them scrape against each other softly.
What struck me first was how little he altered his materials. Pieces of bark, worn metal, stray feathers, bits of plastic, empty glass vessels — their wear is not aestheticized, just left as it is. But this isn’t found-object romanticism. The gallery does not feel like a junkyard, nor a relic hall. It feels like a language suspended mid-sentence — the pause before something takes shape. The objects are not neutral, but they are unresolved. Their histories seem intact, even in fragments.
This resonates strongly with Kojève’s idea of the post-historical — the moment after narrative, when all ideologies have collapsed into a kind of weightless formality. These objects are not part of any modernist march toward meaning. They hover just past the frame of history, whispering in a vocabulary made of scratches, shadows, and flickers of light.
Some works are lit from behind, casting translucent forms — shadows of what could be a bird, a bulb, or something more internal. Others are installations where tiny mechanisms — wires, glass domes, curled fragments of wood — appear not animated but once animated, caught in a time delay. And then there is the recurring hand, seen in video: tenderly touching a taxidermied bird, setting down a rock, lifting nothing. These gestures feel ritualistic, not symbolic. They do not ask us to interpret — only to witness.
Muñoz’s refusal to offer a clear narrative is not coyness; it’s rigor. These are “beasts” not because they are wild or ugly, but because they resist smooth inclusion into systems of value. They are too graceful, too elegant, too marked by damage.
This is not an exhibition I would summarize or recommend casually. It’s one I will remember with a kind of reverent unease. Because something here, I think, understood me — even if I don’t quite understand it back.
Address: Zilberman Gallery, Mısır Apartmanı, İstiklal Caddesi No:163, Beyoğlu, İstanbul
“Thus” – Sara Baruh at Bozlu Art Project Mongeri Building
May 30 – July 26, 2025
I hadn’t planned to stop by Bozlu Art Project that day, but when I found myself near Nişantaşı with a free hour, I decided to visit the Mongeri Building and see what was on. I’m so glad I did. Sara Baruh’s exhibition Thus felt like a quiet world tucked inside the heat and motion of the city.
The show opens slowly—at least that’s how it felt to me. Her recent works are scattered through the space in what seems like an instinctive arrangement, inviting you to pause, look, and then look again. What struck me most was her use of indoor plants—not as decorative elements, but as actors in the installation. Set against careful lighting, they shifted the mood from gallery to greenhouse to dream sequence.
Baruh’s dot-and-line compositions, whether on canvas or paper, had a rhythm to them. I lingered over one piece that seemed like a topographical map of thought—just stains and marks, really, but it pulled me in. There’s no narrative in these works, no easy meaning. But there is a sense of movement, like meditation given form. I stood in front of one drawing and realized I was holding my breath, which tells you something about the atmosphere she creates.
Bozlu Art Project has always been one of those places I associate with quiet discovery, and Thus was no exception. If you’re drawn to slow, sensory experiences—or if you just want a moment to re-center—this is a show to catch before it closes.
Bozlu Art Project Mongeri Building is located at Teşvikiye Cad. No:45, Nişantaşı, Şişli, Istanbul.
Museum Garden Escape – Sadberk Hanım Museum
A bit farther afield, but I finally visited the Sadberk Hanım Museum in Sarıyer. The building alone is worth the trip—a white wooden yalı right on the Bosphorus. Inside: Ottoman textiles, ceramics, ancient jewelry, and a calm that’s hard to find in the city. I brought a sandwich and sat in the back garden afterward, watching boats pass. It felt like the kind of Istanbul afternoon that’s too delicate to name.
Address: Büyükdere Cd. No:235, Sarıyer
This week felt slow in the best way. Art that whispered, music that shimmered, and quiet corners where time stretched out just enough. June in Istanbul teaches you how to pause without stopping.
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