Bozlu Art Project celebrates its 10-year anniversary with the exhibition “Sweeter than a Dream, Beyond a Reverie: 10 Years of Bozlu Art Project”, curated by Dr. Özlem İnay Erten. The group exhibition will take place at Bozlu Art Project’s Mongeri Building between December 14, 2023 and February 24, 2024 and will include works by Ercan Akın, Ali Alışır, İlgen Arzık, Server Demirtaş, Sinan Demirtaş, Evren Erol, Murat Germen, Can Göknil, Tülay İçöz, Balkan Naci İslimyeli, Kazım Karakaya, Meliha Sözeri, Gamze Taşdan, Mehmet Uygun and Semih Zeki.
Bozlu Art Project, set out with the motto “Seeing the work of art out of conventional cliques and contributing to the lack of information and documentation in the field of art in Türkiye”, is celebrating its 10-year anniversary with a group exhibition of works by artists with whom it has collaborated since its foundation and shares a common ideal. The exhibition will also include a documentary in which Bozlu Art Project’s directors Oğuz Erten and Dr. Özlem İnay Erten summarize the decade-long journey with photographs and videos from the gallery’s archive. Bozlu Art Project’s artistic activities such as exhibitions, publications, artist talks, panels, children’s workshops, corporate consultancies and social responsibility projects will be comprehensively documented in Sweeter Than a Dream, Beyond a Reverie: 10 Years Of Bozlu Art Project will soon be published by Bozlu Art Publications.
Since its foundation in 2013, Bozlu Art Project has realized 64 exhibitions, published 38 books and created a library of over 15,000 books, which has made a lasting impact on the art world. After opening its doors to art lovers in December 2013 with the exhibition titled “Connection”, Bozlu Art Project exhibited the works of artists such as Fahrelnissa Zeid, Ferruh Başağa, Nejad Melih Devrim, Mübin Orhon, Adnan Çoker, Mehmet Güleryüz and other pioneers of modern and contemporary art in Türkiye, and exhibited their works together with the materials they used in their workshops such as palettes, brushes and easels. Having functioned in two separate locations, Nişantaşı and Şişli, until December 2018, Bozlu Art Project relocated its gallery operations from Nişantaşı to the historic Mongeri Mansion in Şişli as of January 2019. With exhibitions such as “Climate Change”, “Red Line”, “Fear”, “Sociomania”, “Mad World”, “I am Still Alive”, “Daughters of the Republic”, Bozlu Art Project kept its finger on the pulse of the art world based on social and current events. Bozlu Art Project has organized comprehensive solo exhibitions of artists such as Şevket Dağ, Fahrelnissa Zeid, Cihat Burak, Ali Teoman Germaner, Özdemir Altan, Neş’e Erdok, Utku Varlık, Halil Akdeniz, Balkan Naci İslimyeli, Can Göknil, and others, as a tribute to the pioneers of the development of art in Türkiye. Bozlu has also drawn attention to the importance of supporting distinguished talents through institutional efforts such as exhibitions, fairs, corporate consultancies and publishing activities. And with names such as Server Demirtaş, Sinan Demirtaş, Kazım Karakaya, Ali Alışır, Evren Erol, Meliha Sözeri, Gamze Taşdan, Semih Zeki, and other artists it has represented for a long time, Bozlu Art always made efforts in this direction.
Every book published by Bozlu Art Publishing draws attention to a gap in Turkish art world. The first book of the publishing house, A Mansion in Şişli and Architect Giulio Mongeri, is the first book written about the famous Italian-born architect and his iconic work, the Mongeri Mansion, after more than half a century since the demise of Mongeri, one of the most important figures in the history of Ottoman and Republican architecture. Aloşnâme: The Philosopher’s Stone of a Sculptor sheds light on Aloş, one of the pioneers of modern sculpture in Türkiye, and his series of drawings titled Aloşnâme from the 1970s until his death. The 805-page book titled Time Bird: The Life and Art of Neş’e Edok is the most comprehensive study on Erdok, a catalogue raisonné as it is called in the West, which includes all the works of the artist from her earliest paintings to the publication date of the book. The book titled Ressam Hüseyin Zekâî Paşa ve Mübeccel Hazineler (The Painter Hüseyin Zekâî Pasha and Esteemed Treasures) is the first publication on the life and works of Zekâî Pasha, a pioneer of Ottoman painting, and brings Esteemed Pioneers, one of the first Turkish art history books in print (originally published in 1913) into contemporary Turkish for the first time. Written and illustrated by Can Göknil, the author of the first illustrated children’s book in Türkiye, Ressam Masalı (Painter’s Tale) draws attention to the lack of original and qualified children’s books on the history of art in Türkiye. The book titled The Garden of Earthly Delights, which was printed in 57 special editions and presented to rare book enthusiasts and art collectors in a leather-covered box, contains 77 paintings from the “Garden of Earthly Delights” series, all of which are numbered and signed by Mehmet Uygun. From its design to its printing and binding, this meticulously prepared book is a first among artist books published in Türkiye. Server Demirtaş: A Journey of Movement is the first book written about the life and works of the artist, who is one of the most important names of contemporary sculpture in Türkiye and known for his kinetic sculptures. Fahrelnissa Zeid: Towards a Storm is one of the most detailed publications on the artist, including personal testimonies and important archival information by Yahşi Baraz, the founder of one of the first private art galleries in Türkiye. Laterna Magica: Dr. Şükrü Bozluolçay Collection is a book and exhibition that summarizes nearly a decade of work by Oğuz Erten and Dr. Özlem İnay Erten, the directors of Bozlu Art Project, around the idea of creating and cataloging a collection that manifests our art history. Most of these publications are prepared in both English and Turkish, introduced into the world art literature and included in the catalogs of the world’s leading universities and public libraries, from Harvard University to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Wendy M.K. Shaw’s Ottoman Painting: Reflections of Western Art from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic, a conceptual overview of Ottoman painting, published by Bozlu Sanat Publications in 2022, is among the notable contributions of the publishing house as it revised and translated into Turkish this valuable publication that was originally released in London in 2011.
Besides the books published by Bozlu Art Publications, Bozlu Art Project has shared its vision with art lovers through artist talks, documentaries, catalogues and archival works organized in parallel with the exhibitions, and has secured a permanent place in the art world over the last decade with the exhibitions it has organized for the important names of modern and contemporary art and all its artistic activities. Within the scope of the exhibition titled “Sweeter Than a Dream, Beyond a Reverie: 10 Years Of Bozlu Art Project”, which presents ten years of the gallery’s artistic activities to the public, a book prepared by Dr. Özlem İnay Erten, detailing the decade-long memory of Bozlu Art Project, is about to be shared with art lovers. This book is a comprehensive overview of the exhibitions, publications, artist talks, panels, children’s workshops, corporate consultancies and social responsibility projects that took place over a ten-year period, accompanied by archival documents and photographs. The exhibition, which will be held between December 14, 2023 and February 24, 2024 on the occasion of Bozlu Art Project’s 10th anniversary, will include works by Ercan Akın, Ali Alışır, İlgen Arzık, Server Demirtaş, Sinan Demirtaş, Evren Erol, Murat Germen, Can Göknil, Tülay İçöz, Balkan Naci İslimyeli, Kazım Karakaya, Meliha Sözeri, Gamze Taşdan, Mehmet Uygun and Semih Zeki.