Art On İstanbul will meet with its visitors at Art On İstanbul Piyalepaşa from September 21
to November 2 for Bilal Yılmaz's solo exhibition titled 'Elhamra: Learning from craft'.
This is the first solo exhibition of Bilal Yılmaz who is coming from an interdisciplinary background
started his artistic career with his participation in the 15th Istanbul Biennale. Since then, the artist has
presented his work in contemporary art museums, exhibitions and festivals in Turkiye and abroad. He
is well known for his long-term engagement with craft and its contemporary potential.
The exhibition “Elhamra: Learning from craft” is another expression of this approach. Inspired by
recent field research on Kütahya’s çini craft ecosystem, which was commissioned by Pera Museum, the
artist experiments with forms, materials and techniques to reveal the social, cultural, economic and
aesthetic transformations embedded in craft. He creates a series of sculptures and installations using
movement, light and shadow, that become contemporary variations of centuries-old traces of craft. The
creative process behind the works is an almost obsessive process of transformation, which echoes the
transformations of craft through experimentation with materials and techniques; a process that
incorporates both tradition and innovation; collective and individual ingenuity; leaning on the past
while investing in the future.
As an artist who is concerned about the social impact of what he does, Bilal Yılmaz cannot make an
object just for the sake of making it; he is always preoccupied with creating alternatives for how people
engage with the world around them. Craft occupies a unique position in his creative process as a
medium that carries a lot of stories and production possibilities, enabling him both to conceptualise
and realise his ideas. His motivation is not to preserve the current mostly romanticised and bound to
the past approach to craft, but to reintroduce craft as a valuable production possibility for creative ideas
within and beyond the contemporary context.
Bilal Yilmaz’s “Elhamra: Learning from craft” can therefore provide a case-study for making and
thinking through craft today; a guide for a new craft-based imaginary.
Exhibition Curator: Lydia Chatziiakovou
The exhibition is accompanied by the book “Elhamra: Learning from craft” edited by Lydia
Chatziiakovou and including texts by internationally acclaimed artist Theaster Gates (Professor at
Chicago University), awarded author and art historian Julia Bryan-Wilson (Professor of Art History and
LGBTQ Studies at Columbia University), established contemporary artist Yasemin Özcan, and activist
author and philosopher Artan Sadiku (initiator of School for Politics and Critique). Published by Ona
Göre, the book will be launched on October 19 in an event including talks by the writers.
