AL-MONITOR Istanbul

📍 Istanbul | ☀️ 22° C

by Nazlan Ertan

Welcome back to AL-MONITOR Istanbul.

October has brought the autumn chill, but Istanbul museums and galleries are as hot as ever. This week, a 92-year-old abstractionist makes his Turkish debut with Francis Bacon in tow in Pera; a young Michelin-recognized chef takes over a kitchen in Beykoz; and a Ukrainian photographer takes us underwater. 

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Thanks for reading,

Nazlan (@NazlanEr on X)

P.S. Have tips on Istanbul’s culture scene? Send them my way at nertan@al-monitor.com.

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1. Leading the week: Paint, interrupted 

“Knight Errant” (1978) by British artist Victor Willing. (Photo courtesy of Pera Museum)

Frank Bowling has spent more than six decades letting paint misbehave. At 92 and still working, the Guyana-born British painter is making his Turkish exhibition debut, and Pera Museum has given him company worth arguing with.

“Frank Bowling: Creation and Destruction, with Interventions by Francis Bacon and Victor Willing” began life as a conventional retrospective. Curator Alistair Hicks reconsidered, deciding that Bowling’s story was better told through its interruptions than its chronology. Bacon and Willing therefore arrive not as neighbors but as what Hicks calls “compasses” for finding a way through Bowling’s canvases.

The pairing has history. When Bowling and Willing were students in London, Bacon ruled the city’s radical art world; both young men wanted to enter his circle, and both eventually rebelled. Bacon would have viewed Bowling’s turn to abstraction as a desertion to the camp of critic Clement Greenberg. Willing, barred from storytelling at the Slade, found his loophole in works such as “Knight Errant”: empty stages the mind can wander into.

Date: until Jan. 31, 2027

Location: Mesrutiyet Cad. No: 65, Tepebasi, Beyoglu

2. Word on the street: Scalla 

 Scalla. (Photo courtesy of Scalla) 

Ulas Durmaz went from washing dishes at a hotel in Ayvalik as a teenager to winning Turkey’s Michelin Young Chef Award in 2024, at age 24. Since August, he has run the kitchen at Scalla, the wave-shaped restaurant in Acarkent, where his menu applies contemporary techniques to seasonal produce and Anatolian flavors. 

Location: Acarlar Mah. 9. Cad. AcarVerde E Blok No: 250, Beykoz

3. (Beyond) Istanbul diary

Mehmet Erbak, China, 2017. (Photo courtesy of 212 Photography Istanbul)

Catch the last weekend of 212 Photography Istanbul, marking 200 years of photography across some 40 venues, from Yapi Kredi bomontiada to Yeldegirmeni Sanat. St. Benoit Church, Taksim Sanat and the Institut français are free. Various venues, through Oct. 11.

Italian archaeologists from Arslantepe, Hierapolis, Hattusa and beyond gather for the 17th Italian Cultural Institute Archaeology Symposium, opening with a free concert in Hierapolis’ ancient theater. Sessions the following day are free with registration. Hierapolis and Pamukkale University, Denizli, Oct. 13-14.

Think ahead and abroad: In London, the V&A opens “Constantinople to Istanbul: One City, Two Empires,” 1,600 years told through more than 200 objects, including loans from Topkapi Palace. V&A South Kensington, Nov. 7, 2026 - May 9, 2027.

4. Podcast of the Week: ‘Archaeology, Heritage and Society’ 

Isilay Gursu. (Photo courtesy of the British Institute at Ankara)

In its recent episode, Heritage Turkiye, the British Institute at Ankara’s podcast, has co-host Peter Cherry turn the microphone on Isilay Gursu. They discuss her book “Public Dialogues in Archaeology: New Methodologies from Turkey” (Bloomsbury) and what happens when excavation meets the people next door, from the Pisidia Heritage Trail to SARAT, a project dedicated to safeguarding Turkey’s archaeological assets. Drawing on anthropology, psychology and literature, the conversation offers archaeology with remarkably little dust on it.

5. Istanbul gaze

From Marta Syrko’s “Immersion: Seeing Otherwise.” (Photo courtesy of Ruzy Gallery)

For its first photography show, Ruzy Gallery has gone underwater. Ukrainian artist Marta Syrko uses water to bend light, scale and the body, while an interactive mapping installation lets visitors figuratively wade in. In a city that lives by the Bosporus, the exhibition feels overdue.

Date: until Nov. 20

Location: Tepecik Yolu No: 20, Etiler, Besiktas

6. By the numbers

Turkey is graying fast — and not so happily, according to TurkStat:

• People aged 65 and over made up 4% of the population in 1935 and 11% in 2025. Projections put their share at 23% by 2050 and 34% by 2100, while the share of people under 15 falls from 20% to 12%.

• Nearly half of people over 50 say it is “difficult” to meet their basic needs on their income: 51% of women and 47% of men.

• Internet use among 65- to 74-year-olds jumped from 37% in 2022 to 60% in 2026, though usage remains higher among men (68%) than women (53%).