ISTANBUL.- Pera Museum’s highly anticipated new exhibition “Miniature 2.0: Miniature in Contemporary Art” is now open to visitors. Focusing on contemporary approaches to miniature painting, the exhibition brings together the works of 14 artists from different countries, using various forms such as sculpture, video, textile, and installation. Focusing on issues such as colonialism, orientalism, economic inequality, gender, and identity politics, the “Miniature 2.0” exhibition is on view between 11 August 2020 – 17 January 2021.
Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation Pera Museum, brings a new exhibition to art lovers during the pandemic period. Curated by Azra Tüzünoğlu and Gülce Özkara, “Miniature 2.0: Miniature in Contemporary Art” exhibition brings together more than 40 works of 14 artists from different countries such as Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan. The exhibition features work by Hamra Abbas, Rashad Alakbarov, Halil Altındere, Dana Awartani, Fereydoun Ave, CANAN, Noor Ali Chagani, Cansu Çakar, Hayv Kahraman, Imran Qureshi, Nilima Sheikh, Shahpour Pouyan, Shahzia Sikander and Saira Wasim.
Miniature in the forms of sculpture, video, textile and installation
Noting that miniature gains theoretical potential again today, Azra Tüzünoğlu and Gülce Özkara summarizes the aim of the exhibition as “not treating miniature solely as a historical object, regarding it as a unique art form; and emphasizing its theoretical potential.” The curators share the following information regarding the framework of the exhibition: “In this exhibition that brings together art works that take miniature painting as their starting point, we’ve aimed to discover the different approaches to and shared principles of miniature painting. It traces the rules unique to miniature painting as well as its modern-day conditions. Using various forms such as sculpture, video, photography, and installation, they bring out miniatures from books, where they had resided for centuries, give them new dimensions, and search for ways in which they can reside in the contemporary world. (...) The works in the exhibition argue for action against the nostalgia that freezes miniatures in time and detach them from their cultural context. Today, as the longing for fake history grows, it may be necessary to problematize the past for a better present and a better future. Such local discourses acting globally indicate how urgent it is to think interculturally and internationally. Creative forms of resistance can be observed to spring up all around the world, and we need to update the way we see the world, just as miniatures were updated.”
Rebirth of a tradition that perished in the face of change
Miniature painting was a court art not only in the Ottoman Empire but also in Persia and India. With the economic regression in the eighteenth century, the introduction of the printing press, and the sultans taking more interest in the West and Western art, miniature painting went beyond the confines of the court and even of manuscripts, trying to find for itself new venues of expression. Miniaturists looked for new subjects and experimented with new forms (muraqqas [albums], murals, single-page miniatures). Even though miniature painting survived these changes in the eighteenth century, it was unable to survive in Iran, Pakistan, India, or Turkey, which was built on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, and perished.
Pera Museum’s new exhibition “Miniature 2.0: Miniature in Contemporary Art”, examines “contemporary miniature”, which has strayed far from its classical definition and turned into a vital and contemporary way of creating art and its dynamics.
“Contemporary miniature” as a means of resistance
The exhibition takes contemporary miniature as a means of resistance. Going beyond the familiar East-West comparisons, the works that answer questions about art and society show the audience that other forms of living and thinking are possible.
Problematizing issues such as colonialism, orientalism, economic inequality, gender, identity politics, the struggle against traditional prototypes, social violence, compulsory migration, and representation, the exhibition “Miniature 2.0” creates fertile ground that helps us understand the changing structure of society and repeating patterns as well as notice cultural meanings.
The exhibition catalogue features Azra Tüzünoğlu and Gülce Özkara with their curatorial statement; curator Hammad Nasar with his article on the historical and contemporary use of miniature; academician and miniature artist Filiz Adıgüzel Toprak; academician – culture, politics and women rights expert Vishakha N. Desai, and art historian Nada Shabout.
