Curated by Levent Çalıkoğlu

This retrospective promises to crystallize the links between Mehmet Güleryüz’s works, presenting an oeuvre that addresses and questions Turkey’s sociopolitical issues and conflicts from the 1960s to the present. An aggressively sensitive painter, sculptor, and actor, the Istanbul-born Güleryüz appears influenced by modernist theater, bringing a touch of Brechtian detachment to his nevertheless moving depictions of grotesque figures, caged gorillas, and rabid dogs. This exhibition will present approximately two hundred works made between the ’60s and 2014, including numerous sketches and multimedia presentations, as well as archival material from the artist’s 1979 installation The Museum of Oddities and from his years in Istanbul, Paris, and New York.

— Mine Haydaroğlu