Seminar Series on History of Art: “Is Another History of Art Possible?”
Zeynep Yasa Yaman “The Relationship between the Writing of Art History and the Nation-State”
The reform ideology that aimed to shape the society anew in the Early Republican period, also had charged the arts with a special mission, and thus, the newly established Republic of Turkey became a patron of the arts and artists. The reforms implemented after the establishment of the Republic were explored in the artworks of particularly the young generation of artists of the Republic. In this period, art assumes the role of an apparatus that visualizes innovations such as the image of the modern woman, the Alphabet Reform, and the Clothing Reform. Art becomes a means of assimilating the national values to the people, and that leads to the emergence of the concept of national art. Examining the paintings produced in this period, it is possible to observe that an Art Déco synthesis of Late Cubism was consciously adopted in establishing the modern art of the Republican period in Turkey. While the art of the Early Republican period could be formally defined as an Art Déco art, in terms of content, it also assumed the function of disseminating the ideology of the Republic. In this seminar, we will discuss the effects that establishing a nation through art has on the writing of art history.
Zeynep Yasa Yaman
Art Historian. She is a faculty member of the Department of History of Art at Hacettepe University, Faculty of Letters. She has worked at the Ministry of Culture, General Directorate of Fine Arts between 1978 and 1990, and served as the Director of the Department of Programming and Exhibitions. She has contributed to the foundation of Ankara State Museum of Painting and Sculpture, and was responsible for the conception of the International Asian-European Art Biennial. She has worked as a curator, and participated in and organised artistic and scientific meetings and events. She has published critical reviews, articles, papers of research and analyses on the subjects of Modernism/postmodernism; modern and contemporary art; modernization of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey; policies of tradition, culture and art in modern art; and women’s studies in the art of Turkey. She has prepared collection inventories, written texts for exhibition catalogues, and authored books. Between 2000 and 2005, she served on the board of the Ankara Regional Council for the Conservation of Cultural and Natural Property. On behalf of Hacettepe University Scientific Research Unit, as the project manager, she conducted a survey of monuments and sculptures in 29 provincial centres and their respective districts within the scope of the “Çağdaş Türk Sanatında Anıt Uygulamaları ve Heykel Projesi” (Monuments and Sculptures in Contemporary Turkish Art). She is a member of SANART and the International Association of Art Critics (AICA)
Burcu Pelvanoğlu
Art Historian. She has been a faculty member of the Department of Art History at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University since 2002. Since 2003, she has been a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA). At the association she has served as the Vice-President (2005-2008), President (2009-2012), Vice-President of International Committee (2010-2013), and Chair of Censorship Commission (2015-). Pelvanoğlu has been published on various platforms since 2001.
Event is free.
Number of participants is limited. You can take your invitation card one hour before the beginning time of the event.