Istanbul biennial: art at the crossroads of the world
Istanbul’s unique East-meets-West setting helps lift its biennial into the super league, says Tom Horan.
By Tom Horan
4:51PM BST 30 Sep 2011
There is no recession in Byzantium. To buy his £70 worth of magazines, the man ahead of me in the Istanbul newsagent touch-types his pin number while looking at a twinkling display of watches. He barely registers the cost of the glossy stack: Yacht Park & Lifestyle, Motorboat Month. Last year European City of Culture, this year European Capital of Sport and boasting an outstanding art biennial, the city that straddles Europe and Asia is resurgent. Aside from cars and cats – there are millions of both, all equally ungovernable – what strikes you most are the cashpoints. I have never seen a city with so many, nor one that boasted bigger national flags – immense red rectangles the size of basketball courts, billowing in the breeze that whips up off the Bosphorus.
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