Artist Sarkis will represent Turkey at the Fifty-Sixth Venice Biennale. The presentation will be curated by Defne Ayas in a new location at the Arsenale that was secured by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts for the duration of twenty years—from 2014 to 2034. Sarkis had his first exhibition at the Istanbul Art Gallery in 1960. His work has since been shown at various institutions including the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; the Louvre, Paris; and the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. Since 1964, the artist has lived and worked in Paris. Defne Ayas is the director and curator at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam.