INSIDE VIEW RISEN FROM THE WATER The confluence of the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn has an air of magic about it, and it is no surprise that on the banks of this mystical meeting place, one of the world’s greatest architects has conjured a masterpiece. The new home of Istanbul Modern, Turkey’s original museum of modern and contemporary art, covers 10,500sq m with an assortment of exhibitions, film screenings, educational programmes and, of course, a collection of more than 280 works by the country’s most renowned artists from 1945 to the present day, as well as international stars (Yüksel Arslan, Mark Bradford, Tony Cragg, Olafur Eliasson, Gülsün Karamustafa and Anselm Kiefer among them). The creator is Italian superstar architect Renzo Piano, who took inspiration from the watery surrounds to design a shimmering building of glass and metal. Of his creation, he says: “This museum building is like a creature of the sea, that has just jumped out from the water of the Bosphorus. We wanted to make a building to defy gravity and levitate above the ground, creating transparency with views towards the sea on one side and on the other the park and the medieval district of Galata.” The rota of recent exhibitions matches the building in ambition, among them Floating Islands, which pays homage to artists’ attachment to a specific place while also emphasising the impact of their thought and production beyond borders and geographies; Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s In Another Place, featuring 22 portraits taken around the world by the Turkish filmmaker; and Always Here, a collection of feminist works. istanbulmodern.org FACING PAGE The Floating Islands exhibition ENRICO CANO 82 NetJets
