Ali Kazma’s ‘Landscapes of the Mind’ exhibit opens at Istanbul Modern

ISTANBUL

Istanbul Modern has unveiled Turkish contemporary artist Ali Kazma’s solo exhibition, “Aklın Manzaraları” (Landscapes of the Mind), on June 13.

The exhibition will remain open to the public until Feb. 1, 2026, inviting viewers through Kazma’s visual explorations of books, writing, archives and the cultural landscapes of thought.

Spanning over a decade of work, the exhibition brings together Kazma’s video and photographic projects produced since the 2010s.

Kazma, known for his works exploring labor, time and order has displayed his solo works at the Nouveau Musee National de Monaco, Albergo Diurno Venezia in Milan, MUNTREF in Buenos Aires, Arter in Istanbul and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C.

From personal archives to book restoration workshops, the artist presents a nuanced and textured portrait of the material and intellectual worlds surrounding literature.

Among the highlights are “Mürekkep Evi” (A House of Ink - 2022) and “Sentimental” (2022), two works focusing on Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk’s personal archive and creative space, being shown in Türkiye for the first time.

Also featured is “Alberto in Lisbon” (2024), which documents the relocation of Argentine writer and literary historian Alberto Manguel’s renowned library from France to Portugal, transforming a private collection into a cinematic narrative of memory.

Speaking at the exhibition preview, Kazma explained that his long-term artistic pursuit has been to visually represent the invisible workings of the human mind, especially those of writers and poets.

“I’ve tried to find a way that leads toward the writer’s mind through the physical realm of books,” he said. “Over the padt 15 years, I’ve taken photographs, filmed videos and visited spaces where books are made, repaired, sold, read, forgotten and stored. The marks left behind — the ink, objects, puppets, patterns — these become paths to the topography of thought.”

Curator Demet Yıldız Dinçer emphasized the exhibition’s unique approach to the theme of creative labor. Stating that for over 20 years, they have showcased masters of photography as well as emerging voices in contemporary visual culture, she said, “Kazma, in this show, reexamines familiar concepts such as labor, mastery and production through intellectual creation, shfting from the abstract idea of memory and writing to the physicality of ink.”

Curated by Dinçer alongside Öykü Özsoy Sağnak, Aklın Manzaraları also features Kazma’s acclaimed works “Hat”(Calligraphy) and “Dövme” (Tattoo), both shown at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013.

Visitors will find footage of hard-to-access libraries, printing houses, binders, restorers and booksellers, as well as an extensive photographic archive that catalogues the infrastructure of literary production.