The 100-year-old Yusuf Ziya Paşa Mansion in Rumelihisarı which is home to the headquarters of Borusan Holding becomes Turkey's first office museum in contemporary art field under the name of 'Borusan Contemporary. Perili Köşk will serve as an innovative exhibiton space for the public at weekends while continuing its function as office space on weekdays.
Borusan Contemporary Art Collection, one of Turkey's prominent corporate collections, will also be exhibited in the office museum regularly. As a parallel event to the 12th Istanbul Biennial, Borusan Contemporary will be open on September 17th with two exhibitions, ''Seven New Works and Segment #1''.
Borusan is committed to pursue its cultural investments with the aim of contributing to the public's recognition and awareness of contemporary art.
The Yusuf Ziya Paşa Mansion, one of the most prominent examples of Istanbul's cultural heritage with its unique architecture, and also Borusan Holding's Headquarters since 2007, will be transformed into an office museum under the name ''Borusan Contemporary''. The Yusuf Ziya Paşa Mansion was built in 1910 and in time the building became colloquially known as Perili Köşk. Today, it is to become a global art center.
Borusan Contemporary Art Collection which is the only member of the Association of International Corporate Collections of Contemporary Art (IACCCA) from Turkey, is preparing to welcome its visitors for the first time with its most exquisite examples of contemporary visual art.
During the press conference held for the opening of Borusan Contemporary, Mr. Ahmet Kocabıyık, the Chairman of Borusan Holding made the following statements:
''Borusan Contemporary will have two basic missions: First to share the Borusan Contemporary Art Collection with the public, and secondly to increase people's interest in contemporary art in Turkey. The most important feature of our collection is that it includes examples of new media art. As in Borusan, we work with the possibilities brought to us by contemporary tendencies in all fields, we tried to add the newest and the most experimental pieces of contemporary art to our collection. We are pretty much aware of the risks involved in investing in the experimental works of today's artists, but this is also an extension of our business life principles. Nevertheless, this risk gives us the opportunity to get closely acquainted with the experimental features of a young and different form of art as an outcome of pursuing the values of our time. Furthermore, we want to share our artistic experience with our nation especially with young people. We are very pleased to have this opportunity.''
Agâh Uğur CEO, Borusan Holding continued as follows:
"It sounds more accurate to say that we decided on the foundation of Borusan Contemporary together with all Borusan employees. We took our employees' opinions when the idea of transforming Perili Köşk into an office museum first came up and we discovered that they would be very excited to work in an office museum environment. Also most of our employees joined in the art volunteers program for office museum. Thanks to the support of Borusan family, we are very happy to launch another social responsibility project in the contemporary art field. ''
Office on weekdays, museum at the weekend!
Perili Köşk will function as Borusan Holding's Headquarters on weekdays and Borusan Contemporary at the weekend. Selections from the collection will be exhibited in the office environments and there will be gallery spaces for temporary exhibitions. Annual schedule will include 3 temporary exhibitions inside Borusan Contemporary where there is also a shop and a café for the visitors.
Education inside the office museum
Educational programs that aim at adults and children of all ages will be planned in parallel with the exhibiton schedule. The museum's multidisciplined and multidimensional approach will be reflected with the involvement of various curators in the process.
Opening with two new exhibitions
The museum's opening is planned as a parallel event to the 12th İstanbul Biennial on September 17, 2011 and the opening exhibitions will be Seven New Works, a temporary exhibition, and Segment #1, presenting works selected from the Borusan Contemporary Art Collection.
Seven New Works is curated by Mario Codognato and Sylvia Kouvali while Segment #1's curatorship is undertaken by Dr. Necmi Sönmez. Both exhibitions can be visited until December 11, 2011.
Seven New Works
Video works by Esra Ersen, Burak Arıkan, Gülsün Karamustafa, Cevdet Erek, Nasan Tur, Ergin Çavuşoğlu and Aslı Çavuşoğlu commissioned by Borusan will be exhibited in the Seven New Works exhibition. Latest works by the artists each dealing with a diverse range of topics and issues, reflect on the multiplicity of possibilities and contradictions. The exhibition illustrates the point that art, like contemporary life, cannot reach a unity of expression and universality of content, but rather exhibits the territoriality and segmentation of the ray of interest and investigation that exists.
''Segment #1''
In Segment #1 installed in the other parts and office spaces of the building, pieces by artists from different generations and cultures included in the Borusan Collection will be exhibited. Presenting a multivocal exhibition model, Segment #1 revives the current arts' different tendencies.
Borusan Contemporary Art Collection
Dating back to the 1980s, the collection focused on prominent artists of the 90s and leading representatives of Turkish modern art such as Bedri Baykam and Kemal Önsoy. The collection was mainly composed of paintings and printings, whereas at the beginning of the 21st century, with its new center at Perili Köşk it gained a more international dimension and it is growing steadily.
Today Borusan Collection comprises approximately 600 artworks in diverse media such as oil paintings, sculptures, video art, installations, new media, prints, light art and photography. Printings by Jim Dine, Donald Judd and Sol LeWitt, the light art examples by Brigitte Kowanz, Keith Sonnier, François Morellet and Doug Aitken, paintings by Peter Zimmermann, Gerwald Rockenschaub and Markus Linnenbrink, sculptures by Liam Gillick, Beat Zoderer, and Martin Walde are all part of the collection. In the new media field, works of Zimoun, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, U-Ram Choe, Daniel Rozin and Daniel Canogar stand out in the collection. Monika Bravo, Marina Zurkow, Kutluğ Ataman and Manfred Mohr come into prominence with their video works.
Turkish contemporary art is represented in the collection by leading names such as Abdurrahman Öztoprak, Bülent Evren, Ekrem Yalçındağ, Ardan Özmenoğlu, Erol Akyavaş and Nuri Bilge Ceylan.