JANUARY – FEBRUARY 2026

Issue 32 is Now Available!

ArtDog Istanbul January – February 2026

“THE CENTER OF ART IS SHIFTING

WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE ARABIAN PENINSULA?”

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Questions About Art and Its Center

We began this issue with a question: What is happening in the Arabian Peninsula?

But from the outset, it was necessary to acknowledge that this question alone does not describe a geography. It asks how the cultural center is shifting, under what conditions art becomes visible, which voices are rising while others are being suppressed. Therefore, instead of “describing” what is happening, we structured this issue by trying to understand this shift.

This was our starting point when we gathered the first sixteen pages of the magazine around a dossier.

The intellectual backbone of this dossier is Vasıf Kortun’s text titled “Notes from a History.” Kortun reminds us how the “East-West bridge” metaphor, which Turkish contemporary art has positioned itself with for many years, has become dysfunctional, and indeed problematic from the outset. Instead, he traces the horizontal, continuous, and politically more honest relationships established with the MENA region. Reading Istanbul’s transformation from a showcase or transit area to a de facto center of exiles, collaborative productions, and critical thought from this historical perspective offers a fundamental key to understanding the present.

The text that complements this framework from within, through experience, is our interview with Yahşi Baraz. Baraz describes the cultural transformation in the Gulf not as a “market expansion,” but as a space where power and prestige are reproduced through culture. The following sentence, central to the interview, clearly summarizes this approach: “Being able to say, ‘Come, let’s have a cup of tea at our museum,’ would overwhelm even the wealthiest businessman. As long as wealth coexists with culture and art, you will be the ‘richest.’”

The analyses in this issue titled "What's Happening in the Arabian Peninsula?" and the articles focusing on the cultural architecture of the Gulf show that this transformation cannot be explained solely by economic power. Art here is not merely ornamentation; it functions as a field that produces representation, prestige, and geopolitical positioning.

The artwork featured on the cover of this issue was chosen precisely in this context. The work you see on the cover is "Notes for a Cannon" by Palestinian artist Emily Jacir. Part of the "we refuse_d" exhibition at the Mathaf – Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, this work stands as a threshold that intensifies the exhibition's central theme. Curated by Nadia Radwan and Vasif Kortun, "we refuse_d" discusses how art can establish a space of persistence under conditions of censorship, suppression, and rejection. Jacir's work prompts reflection on how public voices—bells, warnings—are silenced, transformed, and how silence becomes political. That's why it's on the cover.

Sine Ergün's interview with the curators about the exhibition further sharpens the ethical dimension of this issue. The central question of how the claim of "neutrality" often transforms into a comfort zone, and where art truly stands and what it rejects, is central to this conversation.

This issue also adds a new and powerful voice to the magazine. Murat Daltaban is now a columnist for ArtDog. His article, titled "20 Years of DOT and What Happened to Us in Istanbul," tells much more than just the history of a theatre company. It reveals, in a clear and sharp language, that independence is an attitude, even a way of survival, before it is aesthetics; and how theatre has become intertwined with Istanbul amidst the loss of spaces, urban transformation, and constantly shrinking areas. This text doesn't mourn a lost Istanbul; it calmly records the loss itself.

In the exhibitions section, Hale Tenger and Hera Büyüktaşcıyan look at the present through the lens of memory, absence, and fragility. These works remind us that art can still create space for reflection instead of providing hasty answers.

And with this issue, we conclude an intellectual journey. Dick van Zuijlen's "Just Asking" series is here with its final installment. Accompanying the last four issues, these revolutionary writings, in which the author creates a model called AI and Zero, subtly argue that consistency is not an outcome, but a discipline of thinking.

This issue doesn't try to quickly explain what's happening. Instead, it continues to observe. Because perhaps the most appropriate attitude in today's rapidly changing world is to stand calmly in the face of complexity.

Happy reading.

Şebnem Kırmacı – Editor-in-Chief, ArtDog Istanbul

Cover: Emily Jacir, Notes for a Canon, 2016

Cover Design: Burcu Ocak

IMPRINT

PUBLISHER

ArtDog Istanbul Art Investments Inc. On behalf of

Boğaçhan Buğra Kaya & Şebnem Kırmacı

GENERAL EDITOR

Şebnem Kırmacı

PUBLICATION CONSULTANT

Tahir Özyurtseven

MANAGER OF EDITORIAL SERVICE

Sibel Oral

EDITORS

Semra Dursun, Şeyma Elaman Üstün, Sine Ergün, İdil Sancar, Hatice Utkan Özden

ADVERTISING

İpek Peker ipek@artdogistanbul.com

MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION

Sıla Tanilli sila@artdogistanbul.com

DIGITAL DESIGN

Büşra Kaplan, Burcu Ocak

CONTRIBUTORS

Fırat Arapoğlu Murat C

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