The 18th Istanbul Biennial has opened with a renewed focus on hope and future possibilities, marking a significant departure from its troubled organizational past. Curator Christine Tohmé has crafted an exhibition that emphasizes "futurity over futility," creating a space where self-preservation and forward-looking perspectives work hand in hand. This vision is perfectly captured in Naomi Rincón-Gallardo's video installation "Resilience Tlacuache/Opossum Resilience" (2019), which uses survival-seeking opossums as a metaphor for humanity's resilience against violent threats to happiness and life.
This edition stands apart as "The Three-Legged Cat," representing the first time since the biennial's founding in 1987 that it will unfold over three years rather than the traditional two. The current leg features 47 artists, with only six from Turkey but many more representing the broader Middle East region. This extended format appears to be a strategic move toward stability by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV), the private foundation that administers the biennial, following a particularly rocky period of reorganization.
The biennial's path to opening was marked by significant controversy and leadership changes. In February 2023, the Istanbul Biennial's advisory board unanimously selected Defne Ayas, now director of The Van Abbemuseum, to oversee the 18th edition. However, IKSV rejected this decision and instead appointed Iwona Blazwick of the Whitechapel Gallery, who was a member of the selection committee. Following widespread outcry from the arts community, Blazwick stepped down from her role, and the much-admired Beirut-based curator Christine Tohmé was finally selected to lead the exhibition.
Tohmé's appointment brought significant changes to the biennial's structure and approach. She proposed the three-year format and initiated an open call process to encourage greater transparency in artist selection. The biennial's budget was substantially increased from $2 million to $6.5 million to accommodate the extended program, with most of the funding provided by Koç Holdings, the only Turkish company listed on the Fortune 500.
During her opening speech, Tohmé addressed contemporary global conflicts with remarkable candor, speaking about how genocidal violence makes all attempts at a fulfilling life, including art, seem trivial. While she did not specifically mention Gaza, the ongoing conflict there served as an unspoken backdrop to many discussions. Despite acknowledging these harsh realities, the curator's vision for the biennial deliberately favors futurity over futility, leaving room for fantasy, playfulness, and even cautious optimism.
The exhibition is strategically spread across eight venues in close proximity to each other, utilizing unconventional spaces that add meaning to the artworks. These locations include a former cone factory, a deteriorating theater building, a school-turned-museum, and the shell of a French orphanage. At the orphanage site, Khalil Rabah has installed "Red Navigapparate" (2025), a site-specific intervention featuring shiny red oil barrels holding trees and saplings, offering what Tohmé describes as a regenerative practice in response to the horrors faced by the Palestinian people.
Several artists engage directly with the Palestinian experience and broader themes of survival. Sohail Salem has created anxiety-provoking drawings that depict his life-and-death struggle in Gaza, using ballpoint pens to scratch in intricate details that convey the immediacy of his experience. In contrast, Mona Benyamin's short video "Tomorrow, again" (2023) employs black humor as a form of catharsis, featuring clownish actors playing Palestinian news announcers who laugh to the point of sobbing against a backdrop of perpetual destruction. This powerful work deserves wide distribution, particularly to audiences who remain divided on the term genocide, though it will likely not receive the attention it merits as many Western museums continue to avoid such challenging material.
The biennial also addresses issues of censorship and LGBTQ+ representation in increasingly creative ways. Akram Zaatari's contributions, "Olive Green" (2020) and "Crimson Red" (2021), portray scenes of wrestlers engaged in a sport practiced in Turkey since ancient times. These works are painted with a modest touch that seems to deliberately ignore their homoerotic undertones, which could be labeled as acts of resistance in a country where LGBTQ+ imagery is regularly censored and considered contrary to the image of family promoted by religious and government authorities.
Elif Saydam offers another approach to queer representation with "Hospitality" (2024-2025), where layers of laminated sheets featuring flower images hang from the ceiling, seducing viewers to enter a maze of queer beauty. Even more courageous is the curator's decision to include a satirical examination of homoerotic themes in Greek culture by artist duo VASKOS (Vassilis Noulas and Kostas Tzimoulis), featured prominently in a street-level window on a major thoroughfare where it cannot be missed by passersby.
One of the exhibition's most powerful works is Valentin Noujaïm's brilliant film "Pacific Club" (2023), which serves to lead audiences toward hope and resilience. The film features a French-Algerian man recounting the story of a nightclub that served as a refuge for immigrants during the 1980s. His tales encompass discrimination and community building, surviving the AIDS crisis, and the devastating effects of heroin addiction, painting a picture of a previous era when death seemed imminent for many marginalized communities.
This personal testimony is filmed against contemporary footage of the same neighborhood, where the past has been erased by towering glass buildings and geometric plazas. The juxtaposition suggests that we cannot predict the future and that life can continue even when the end seems near, reinforcing the biennial's overall message of resilience and hope.
Despite extensive censorship in Turkey's increasingly authoritarian political climate, including the imprisonment of Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and cultural minister Mahir Polat earlier this year, there is no evidence that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan interfered directly with the organization of the biennial or the selection of artworks. This may suggest that artists and cultural workers organizing shows in Turkey have learned to communicate through insinuation rather than direct accusation, allowing them to avoid direct confrontations with authorities while still addressing important social and political issues.
Creating a biennial that offers optimism under an oppressive regime presents major challenges, and some of the curator's choices may seem random or disconnected at first glance. For example, VASKOS's work shares space with Pilar Quinteros's more conceptual pile of sculptures titled "Working Class" (2025), creating an seemingly unlikely pairing. However, this strategy of unexpected juxtapositions can be liberating, freeing viewers to form their own interpretations rather than being guided toward predetermined conclusions.
The 18th Istanbul Biennial ultimately provides a charming alternative to the often bleak tone of many contemporary international art exhibitions. By embracing hope, resilience, and the power of artistic expression to transcend political oppression, the exhibition demonstrates that art can serve as both refuge and resistance. The biennial continues through November 23 across its eight venues throughout Istanbul, offering visitors an opportunity to experience this unique vision of futurity over futility in one of the world's most culturally complex cities.
