EVET
versus
HAYIR
[YES versus NO]
Resistance art within the public space of Istanbul after the failed
coup d’état in the night of July 15 to 16, 2016, in Turkey, until
the Turkish presidential referendum of April 16, 2017.
Master thesis Supervisor: dr. Marga van Mechelen Marianne de Zeeuw Second reader: dr. Jeroen Boomgaard July 8, 2017
2
Master Thesis Master Art History Faculty of Humanities University of Amsterdam
Student: Marianne de Zeeuw Student ID: 10211241
Supervisor: dr. Marga van Mechelen Second reader: dr. Jeroen Boomgaard Amsterdam
July 8, 2017
3
Acknowledgments
--
As Claire Bishop remarks in her book Artificial Hells – Participatory Art and the
Politics of Spectatorship (2012), a student or scholar who researches theatre and
performance art and everything that is in between, cannot rely on books, essays and documentary photographs only. This statement is also valid for this master thesis. In this research I had the help of Turkish artists, art historians, and friends, who informed me through conversations, invited me for performances and guided me through Istanbul while translating potential political statements. On this account, I would like to thank Ismail Ata Doğruel (Performistanbul), Gülhatun Yıldırım
(Performistanbul), Batu Bozoğlu (Performistanbul), Ebru Sargın (Performistanbul), Asena Günal (DEPO), Gökhan Tun (Istructor Bilgi Media), Bedri Baykam (visual artist and activist), Ferda Çağlayan (art historian – sculptures in public space) and Bulut Eydoğdu (my dear flatmate and translator).
Marianne de Zeeuw Amsterdam
5
Abstract
--
Within this master thesis, a research is done on the field of art, power, and
resistance, by tracing resistance art in the past turbulent decade in Turkey. I asked myself the question if, and how, we can recognize resistance art in the public space of Istanbul during the turbulent months after the failed coup d’état in the night of July 15 to 16, 2016, in Turkey, until the Turkish presidential referendum of April 16, 2017. By explaining in my first chapter the presence of two dominant political
ideologies in Turkey, namely the ideology of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the relation between art and power in Turkey, a context is created in which the place of contemporary Turkish art can be understood. Although contemporary emerged as an autonomous form of art, which sparked little interest from Islamic regime, this autonomy seem to became less. The government, enforced by the artistic outburst during the Gezi Park Protests in 2013, recognized the
mobilizing ability of the language of resistance.
In order to trace and recognize resistance art as such, I looked into the theories of Michel Foucault, Jacques Rancière and Mieke, and many other
researchers on the field of art and resistance. What becomes clear, is that resistance art can be recognized as such if it performs in a critical way. This art form, which I consider as a subgenre of contemporary art, can in this way actively form a language of resistance. Within Turkey, a lot of these art can be connected to the popular
ideology of Atatürk, placing him against Erdoğan.
After tracing the language of resistance and its embodied and disembodied translations during the Gezi Park Protests, I used this language in trying to recognize a resistance in Turkey under a state of emergency. Although I expected there to be a vivid artistic resistance, the strict and violent government of Erdoğan causes a fear within the art field. Except for several works of graffiti and the emulation of the
Turkish word ‘no’(referring to the referendum) as a visual display of resistance, there is little resistance art to be found in the public space of Istanbul.
7
Contents
--
Introduction 9
1. Istanbul, the Turkish capital of (contemporary) art 12
1.1. The arts as a tool in the quest of president Mustafa Kemal Atatürk 13 1.2. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ideals for a ‘New Turkey’ 18
1.3. The rise of contemporary art in Istanbul 24
2. Art and its political potential in public space 31
2.1. Philosophies and theories on art, power, and resistance 32 2.1.1. Michel Foucault: power calls for resistance, resistance calls for art 33 2.1.2. The representative art regime of Jacques Rancière 35 2.2. Recognizing the critical political potential in art 37
2.2.1. Performativity according to Mieke Bal 38
2.3. Tracing resistance art 40
2.3.1. Disembodied resistance art 41
2.3.2. Embodied resistance art 45
3. The Gezi Park Protests, Istanbul of (2013) 49
3.1. Occupying monumental public space 49
3.2. Tracing the language of resistance during the Gezi Park Protests 52
3.3. The aftermath of the Gezi Park Protests 58
4. (Self-)censorship in the art scene of Istanbul after the failed coup d’état in Turkey in the night of July 15 to 16, 2016, until the presidential referendum of April 16, 2017 62
4.1. The potential threat of contemporary art 63
4.2. The failed coup d’état in Turkey in the night of July 15 to 16, 2016 66
4.3. Contemporary art under a state of emergency 67
4.3.1. The withdrawal of (performance) art from public space 67
4.3.2. Disembodied traces of resistance 69
4.3.3. EVET versus HAYIR 71
Conclusion 75
Bibliography 78
Literature 78
8
Conversations 84
Images 85
Attachment 1: Map of the centre of Istanbul 87
Attachment 2: Artistic barricades during the Gezi Park Protests 88
Attachment 3: The Lady in the Red Dress 90
Attachment 4: The Atatürk Cultural Centre as the billboard of the Gezi Park Protests 93 Attachment 5: The face of Atatürk on Turkish flags during the Gezi Park Protests 94 Attachment 6: The political potential of graffiti in public space, Istanbul 97 Attachment 7: An ode to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in the Istiklal Street, March 2017, 101 Istanbul.
9
Introduction
--
The Republic of Turkey is sometimes described as the nation of coups:1 from the
second half of the twentieth century until 2016, there has been five military coups d’état in the history of the relatively young nation. The first coup d’état was carried out in 1960, followed by similar events in 1971, 1980, and 1997.2 The fifth coup d’état
took place about one year ago, namely in the night of July 15 to 16, 2016, in which forces of the military tried to seize the power from the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (1954-). In contrast to the previous four coups, this attack on the ruling government failed. After the deadly outcome of the night, a witch-hunt was opened by the government against anyone who could be connected with the Turkish religious leader Fethullah Gülen (1941-), who was immediately blamed by Erdoğan as the leader of the coup d’état. Also, Erdoğan declared the nation to be in a state of
emergency for the following three months.3 Today, Turkey is still in this state of
emergency, which brings a lot of uncertainty because of the no-nonsense
government that is less restricted by laws, rights, and criminal justice. The arrests of hundreds of thousands potential Gülen-followers and enemies of the Republic of Turkey were the result.
The state of uncertainty lasted at least until the presidential referendum on April 16, 2017. On this date, the Turkish civilians were given the opportunity to vote whether president Erdoğan should gain total (executive) power and there should be a change in the Turkish constitution (evet: the yes-vote) or whether the presidential system should remain in its current form (hayır: the no-vote). The outcome of the referendum, was a victory on the side of evet-vote with 51,2 %.
The political turbulent period between the coup d’état and the referendum functioned as a period in which a resistance against the power of Erdoğan emerged, as did happen during turbulent times of the Gezi Park Protests of 2013. With the presence of a resistance, potential political art can be analysed as resistance art: art that is part of the visual language of resistance. The relation between art and its
1 Balci, 2007: p. 131. 2 Idem.
10 political potential has become a popular subject for art historians. But the
interdisciplinary relation between art and politics is also being studied by theatre scholars, sociologists, political historians, anthropologists, and philosophers such as Michel Foucault (1926-1984) and Jacques Rancière (1940-). Especially within the field of contemporary art, political art have emerged as a subgenre of its own, described in terms of activist art, oppressed art, protest art, participatory art, or, as I will use, resistance art. With the artistic resistance of the publicly outburst of the Gezi Park Protests in mind, the question I want to answer in this research is if, and how, we can recognize resistance art in the public space of Istanbul during the turbulent months after the failed coup d’état in the night of July 15 to 16, 2016, in Turkey, until the Turkish presidential referendum of April 16, 2017?
In this thesis on resistance art in the public space of Istanbul, I firstly rely on the theories of the philosopher Michel Foucault on the relations between art, power, and resistance. I will define resistance art in accordance with the Foucault’s concepts of power and resistance. Also, I shall briefly discuss the ideas of Jacques Rancière on representative art, in order to answer the question when an artwork performs as a representation of, in this case, the resistance. The use of the verb ‘perform’ refers to the process of performativity, as is among others described by literature scientist and art critic Mieke Bal. Bal argues for a performative element in every artwork, either disembodied or embodied, since it acts on the individual and collective memory of the spectator. An artwork can be recognized as a certain representation by the dialogue between the artwork or performance and the actively engaged spectator. This process of performativity is thus an essential step in recognizing art which performs or acts as part of a resistance, by using the three components of performativity - the content, context, and intention of artwork – as a theoretical frame and analysis model. A corresponding critical or political interpretation by several individuals, can determine which artworks are considered as part of the visual language of resistance. While I shall focus on resistance art, after discussing its meaning and
characteristics, it is also necessary to frame this research in a certain time and place. As my research question makes clear, I will be working within the time span from the failed coup of July 2016, until the date of the referendum in April 2017. But in order to understand this period in Turkey, it is also necessary to introduce the dominant political ideologies in Turkey and the events of the Gezi Park Protests. The place of interest can be easier framed: the public space of Istanbul. Although Istanbul is not
11 the capital of Turkey, it can be considered as the art-capital of the country, as I will make clear in my first chapter. Also, the (recent) political history makes the public spaces of Istanbul an interesting subject of study. The public space of Istanbul will in this research mostly consist of the outside streets, squares, and parks which are free to enter. Another form of public space, which has also a free entrance, is the Internet. For this reason, I shall include digital forms of resistance art.
The first chapter will be an introduction on the Republic of Turkey and the ideologies of president Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Within these ideologies, the place of contemporary art within Turkey shall be
explained. This introduction is necessary, since it creates the context in which resistance art in the public space of Istanbul can be understood. In my second chapter I will explain the Foucault, Rancière, and Bal, whose ideas will function as the theoretical framework of this research, and which I shall apply in the third chapter. The third chapter concerns the art of the Gezi Park Protests in 2013 and symbolic representations of the resistance. The context of the first chapter, the theories of the second chapter, and the symbols and images that are part of the visual language of resistance discussed in the third chapter will together provide the information that is necessary to answer if, and how, we can recognize resistance art in the public space of Istanbul during after the failed coup d’état in the night of July 15 to 16, 2016, in Turkey, until the Turkish presidential referendum of April 16, 2017.
12
1. Istanbul, the Turkish capital of (contemporary) art
--
When one tries to map the field of contemporary art and politics within the biggest city of the Republic of Turkey, it is interesting to take a look into the complex history that lays at the foundation of contemporary Istanbul. This history includes the
uprisings and downfalls of different empires, religions, politics and cultures. The Roman emperor Constantine (274-337) transformed from 330 until his death the small settlement of Byzantium into the wealthy and expanding city Constantinople. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, Constantinople
became the capital of the Byzantine Empire (or the Eastern Roman Empire). For over a thousand years, the city was the centre of this Christian empire. Conquered in 1453 by sultan Mehmed II (1432-1481), the city, renamed as Istanbul, became the capital of the Islamic Ottoman Empire.
Because of a lack of historical documentation, preserved art and architecture in Istanbul are important visual tools in reconstructing ideologies of different
emperors, sultans and regimes. These different political representatives are all imbedded within the concept of power by the French philosopher Michel Foucault, a concept which I will discuss extensively in the next chapter.4 Within this chapter, it is
important to understand power as the ruler or ruling party of a certain period of time. In the old city of Istanbul, different artistic expressions of power can be traced. For instance, the Christian Byzantine emperors and ruling elite commissioned
churches and palaces with figurative monumental decoration, such as expensive mosaics and fresco’s, representing their Christian faith and wealthy status. The sultans of the Ottoman empire mainly focused on religious and non-figurative
decorative architecture, corresponding with their Islamic identity which disapproves of the depiction of all living beings. The different ideologies of power can thus be traced by analysing the content and context of the different commissioned artworks and buildings, of which some are still preserved in Fatih, the century-old neighbourhood of Istanbul (attachment 1).
Although Jacques Rancière (another French philosopher whose theories on art and politics I will also discuss in the next chapter) is against the utilitarian
13 contextualization of art as a representation of a certain regime of power within the academic discourse of art history,5 it is impossible to deny the mutual influence
between art and power. Especially within the modern 20th and 21st century, in which
many new ways of preserving and documenting ideologies of power are introduced - such as digital reproduced texts, videos, photography, and social media - this bilateral relation can be researched even more extensively. With the large amount of documented information art scholars have access to, it is even more interesting to research power through art, and the other way around.
In this chapter, I want to create an understanding of the place of contemporary art within the relatively young Republic of Turkey by researching the relationship between art and two Turkish presidents, whose faces are visually present in both the public spaces as the private interiors of Turkey: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938) and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (1954-). It is important to understand the political
ideologies of Atatürk and Erdoğan and their differences, since they are the key in understanding the seemingly contradictory Turkish nationality today, with different protests, conflicts, and coups d’état as a result. Within these ideologies, the place of Turkish art, contemporary art (and eventually resistance art, as I will explain in the next chapter) can be understood.
1.1. The arts as a tool in the quest of president Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
After a turbulent period in the beginning of the twentieth century, in which the
Ottoman Empire had to deal with the Constitutional Revolution (1908), the First World War (1914-1918), the Independence War (1918-1913) and a big loss of its territory, the last Islamic sultan Mehmet VI resigned from his position.6 The political and
Western-inspired political movement of the Young Turks (Jön Türkler, who were also the instigators of the Constitutional Revolution and the Independence War)
proclaimed the Republic of Turkey on October 29, 1923.7 Their military and political
leader was Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who became the first Turkish president.8 In his
fifteen years as president, Atatürk tried to modernize the (in his eyes) outdated
5 Rancière: p.10.
6 The Constitutional Revolution was the re-establishment of the Ottoman constitution of 1876 under pressure
of the Young Turks. According to Bozdoğan, this revolution, which revolted against the absolute power of the sultan, was essential in the transition from the an empire to a republic. During the Independence War the Young Turks successfully continued their mission to put an end to the reign of Ottoman sultans.
Bozdoğan, 2008: p. 421.
7 Axiarlis, 2014: p. 11. 8 Bozdoğan, 2008: p. 421.
14 politics, economy and culture of the Ottoman past, evolving a modern Turkey which resembled the secular and industrial nations of Europe. The major changes Atatürk carried out, was the structuring of the republican state with a new constitution and an elected parliament, the replacement of the Arabic (and Islamic) language by the Latin-Turkish alphabet, secularizing the education and the court system, giving women the right to vote, outlawing polygamy, and discouraging headscarves.9 Also,
he instituted Ankara as the capital of the Republic of Turkey, making use of its central position within the new borders of the nation.10 Istanbul, the old Ottoman capital, did
no longer met the requirements of Atatürk’s vision. All the changes Atatürk carried out, supervised into the smallest detail, can be seen as steps towards his quest of ‘a modernized, secular Turkey which could compete successfully with other states, nations and societies at the highest level of contemporary civilization,’11 according to
Middle Eastern specialist Jacob M. Landau. Atatürk found this ‘highest level of contemporary civilization’ in Western-Europe.
A crucial element in reaching the same level of Western civilization was a reinvention of the Turkish arts. In Atatürk’s beliefs, art was the visual evidence of a prosperous and modernized nation: evidence he did not discover during the reigns of the Ottoman sultans. Atatürk stated: ‘They [Ottoman sultans] did not see the harm done in allowing the arts to be exploited and monopolized by other nations. Our noble nation was deprived of arts.’12 To understand just how important the arts were
for Atatürk, it is interesting to look at a (translated) citation, which is an excerpt from a speech in Adana, Turkey, on March 16, 1923:
In order to keep a nation alive it is necessary to have some fundamentals, and as you know among the most important of them are the arts. If a nation is rich in art and people skilled in the arts, it can achieve a full life of its own. A nation that cannot do this is like a man who is lame or lacks a limb, who is an invalid or crippled. But for what I want to say, even this comparison is not adequate. If a nation is cut off from the arts, one of its vital arteries is severed. But I must emphasize that it is not enough to produce individual artists. Men cannot be wholly successful working alone. When God created mankind he gave man a moral principle, which is that all are bound to work together. If this collective activity is a physical necessity, it is clear that working
9 Landau, 1984: p. xii. 10 Idem.
11 Idem.
15 for a common goal is essential. As a first truth we must realize that if we want to progress in any of the arts, people of the same profession and art must unite and cooperate.
If a nation does not give enough importance to the arts, it can expect to face great disaster. But many elements of society do not realize the degree of this disaster, nor, when they do realize it, do they know how great an effort will be needed.13
There are two important elements in this fragment, namely the necessity of high artistic quality and the importance of collaborations between artists, the people and power to keep a nation in progress. The high quality of art was found in popular art styles of painting, music and theatre of Western-Europe.
The introduction of the Western arts in Turkey worked in two directions: Atatürk brought Western artists to the growing number of art schools and collectives in the bigger cities of Turkey to educate young male and female students, such as at the School of Fine Arts in Ankara.14 Also, artists were motivated and financed by the
state to follow an art education at a Western art academies. Through a portrait of Atatürk by the Turkish painter Feyhaman Duran (fig. 1), who followed his education in Paris,15 it becomes clear that the form and style Atatürk desired for his nation were
not the uprising avant-garde styles which gained popularity among the progressive artists in Western-Europe in the beginning of the twentieth century. Instead, Atatürk preferred the more academic, conservative and realistic ways of painting: the taste of the elite in Western-Europe, according to the Turkish president.16 The same goes for
his taste in music, dance and theatre. Next to the realistic and formal portraits of important members of the Turkish society, Atatürk commissioned operas and classical music orchestrations and invited Western artists to perform in Ankara and the other bigger cities of the Republic of Turkey.17 Artist who worked for Atatürk and
13 Ibid: p. 217.
14 In 1926, the School of Fine Arts was amalgated with the School of the Fine Arts for Women, providing the
first education for female artists in the Republic of Turkey founded by Atatürk. With the amalgation, Atatürk took this emancipation of female artists even further, making them equal to the male students in the
educational system. This emancipation within the fine arts (and in theatre) education however cannot be found in the representation of artists working in the professional field during those years,
Anadol, 2016: p. 13.
15 From 12 January – 30 July, 2017, the Sakıp Sabancı Müzesi exhibitis a retrospective of the Turkish painter
Feyhaman Duran, focusing on his commissioned portraits by Turkish members of the higher classes and his private impressionistic exploration within landscape paintings. Exh: FEYHAMAN DURAN - (İki Dünya Arasında) -
(Between Two Worlds), Sakıp Sabancı Müzesi, Istanbul.
16 Anadol, 2016: p. 13. 17 Yazıcı, 2013. P. 2214.
16 other members of the ruling Turkish elite reproduced the formal and stylistic qualities of the Western academic arts as a tool in expressing their clients in a modern and intellectual way. Within the academic discourse of art history, we can discuss how
modern this taste in art really was, since Atatürk mostly preferred conventional
artworks in the academic styles of painting, music and theatre, educated in Europe in the 19th century. Avant-garde and modernistic styles at the turn of the century (such
as Impressionism, Art Nouveau, and Expressionism) that gained popularity among the Western-European elite, did not spark the interest of the Turkish president.
1. Feyhaman Duran. Portrait (Atatürk). 1937.
The second important element in Atatürk’s speech is his call for all Turkish artists to work on a common goal, namely the creation of a new Turkish nationality. In achieving this national feeling, Atatürk ascribed such a big role to artists that art became a state manner, or as Turkish musicologist Hilmi Yazıcı describes: ‘art became the main culture question, the problems of art education became the
problem of national education.’18 While using art as a political tool, Atatürk’s aim was
17 not to simply copy the Western academic art forms and styles, but to combine them with themes that would contribute to a new Turkish nationality. The government had a clear vision of what these themes should be, formulated by Atatürk in six criteria:
1. Especially, it will amplify the love of nation and patriotism and the excitement of Reformism,
2. It will recall the greatest moments of Turkish History and introduce the heroism of the National Struggle,
3. It will portray the country’s largest cities, towns, villages, and natural beauties and it will promote and popularize each corner of the country separately,
4. It will put forward the ugliness and ridiculousness of bigotry, superstition, and bad customs,
5. It will show morality and courage in each field with great examples,
6. It will instil the love of populism and bear the qualities that guide spirits to that major path.19
What these artistic criteria make clear, is Atatürk’s pride for the country, its beauty, past, present, and future. This pride had to be shared through artistic media. As the fourth criterion already suggests, Atatürk did no longer consider Islam as an artistic source for the arts in his secular republic. Instead, he chose non-religious historical events, places, and people to function as a source of artistic inspiration, neglecting the prominent historical presence of Islam on Turkish territory, but also during his own reign. Instead, and not surprisingly, the most popular artistic theme became Atatürk himself. Functioning as the prototype of the new, modern Turk, his image was spread throughout the country, expressed through Western academic art styles. This combination of Eastern and Western ideals lays at the foundation of the so-called ‘Kemalist republican nationalism’,20 in which ‘Kemalist’ refers to the political and
social ideology of Atatürk.
The efficacy of the spreading of this Kemalist nationalism can still be traced in contemporary Turkey. Spread throughout the nation in the period after the founding of the Republic of Turkey, Atatürk’s ideology took shape in especially the Turkish capital, Ankara, where new museums, theatres and concert halls were constructed. By 1950, around 500 People’s Houses and over 4000 People’s Rooms (Halkevleri) were opened to ‘fill leisure hours with entertainment and educational activities with
19 During, 2005: p. 144. English translation. 20 Tapper, 1991: p. 7.
18 the aim of enabling people physically, mentally and intellectually, by bringing the arts – in which Kemalist principles were stressed – directly to the people,’ as Turkish artist Metin And described them.21
The quest of creating a secularized Republic of Turkey and spreading the Kemalist nationality as the new Turkish nationality through artistic media, evoked (silent) resistance, especially from religious and rural areas.22 The power,
represented by Atatürk’s Republican People's Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, or CHP) and his successors, forced the Turks to adjust themselves to the modern and European ways of living, while the vast majority of the Turkish citizens were still Islamic and bound to centuries old traditions. Although Atatürk is still praised today by many Turks because of his efforts to modernize the country and to create a uniform feeling of nationalism, it is impossible to conclude that he fully succeeded in his quest. This will become more clear when we look at the period after Atatürk until the current reign of president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
1.2. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ideals for a ‘New Turkey’
After the dead of Atatürk in 1938 until today, there were several clashes between Kemalists (Atatürk’s political followers and representatives of the ideology of Atatürk) and political opponents, who (among other things) desired a reintroduction of Islam in daily life. The opponents gathered in parties such as the Democratic Party (Demokrat
Parti, or DP 1950-1961) and the current ruling Justice and Development Party of
Erdoğan (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, or AKP). The army and its soldiers, who
consider themselves to be guards of the standards and values of Atatürk, reacted on their turn on periods of uprising Islamic political power through the coups d’état of 1960, 1971, 1980 and 1997 - and eventually 2016. Richard Tapper, who is
specialised in Turkish history, explains the clashes as a ‘a simple conceptual opposition […] between “republican” (= modern, secular, European) and between “Islamic” (= backward, decadent, Ottoman).’23 Because of the constant clashing of
political ideologies in Turkey, ‘transformation in Turkey have never been a uniform and linear process,’ thus Turkish academic Reşat Kasaba.24
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, born in 1954 in the poor neighbourhood Kasımpaşa,
21 And, 1984: p. 219. 22 Landau, 1984: p. xi. 23 Tapper, 1991: p. 7. 24 Kasaba, 2008: p. 2.
19 Istanbul, witnessed all the coups and deposits of legitimate elected presidents.
According to Dutch journalist Betsy Udink, these events instigated an anxiety and belief in a master plan against himself and Turkey. Udink explains that Erdoğan considers himself and like-minded Turks as victims who are always countered by either Western powers or Turkish opponents (like the CHP).25 Erdoğan found the
evidence of his suspicions with the coup d’état in the night of July 15 to 16, 2016, a violent event which I shall explain in the fourth chapter.
Erdoğan knew from earlier coups that in order to gain and maintain political power over Turkey, he had to mediate between his Islamic identity and the
demanded secular democracy by the army and influential Kemalists. Especially the so-called postmodern (non-violent) coup of 1997 in which prime-minister Necmettin Erbakan and his political Welfare Party (Refah Partisi, or RP, of which Erdoğan was also a member) had to resign from their position because of his outspoken Islamic political ideology, were a direct influence in the changed political conviction of Erdoğan.26 The mediation caused major changes in his political statements through
the years, which makes biographic writers such as Udink, journalists, and other (inter)national politicians wonder what the true intentions of Erdoğan are. We can trace these changing political intentions through, again, the relationship between power and art.
The first encounter of Erdoğan within the field of art were with written and recited poetry. As a student on an imam-hatipschool, his skills in public speaking got stimulated at a young age.27 The fact that Erdoğan won a recitation contest already in
1973 shows evidence of his talent, according to Turkey specialist Erdal Balci.28
Erdogan and some of his fellow students gathered themselves in the ‘60s and ‘70s around the Turkish conservative poet Necip Fazıl (1904-1983), who was, according to Udink, a great influence for Erdoğan and his Islamic political thinking. Fazıl’s writings describe, for example, the Islam as the one true path and the need of an exalted leader (the başyüçe) who will resist the invention of democracy by the Jews and the West.29 Corresponding thoughts on the side of Erdoğan can be found in a
25 Udink, 2014: p. 289. 26 Lagendijk, 2016: p. 41.
27 Imam-hatipschool: an educational institution with extensive attention to textual interpretation and reciting
of the Quran. Udink, 2014: p. 294.
28 Balci, 2007: p. 160. 29 Udink, 2014: p. 280-284.
20 play he wrote and acted in at the age of 21, namely the play Mas-Kon-Yah (Turkish abbreviations for Masons, communists and Jews, three groups which were seen as enemies of the Turkish nation and were overcome by the character Erdoğan played in this piece.)30 Also, the next statement adds to this argument: ‘Democratie is een
tram waar wij op mee rijden tot het punt waar we naar toe willen en dan stappen we uit. […] Democratie is geen doel, maar een middel. [‘Democracy is a train on which
we ride, until we reach the point where we have to be, and then we exit. […] Democracy is not a goal, but a tool.]’31 Erdoğan’s Islamic and anti-democratic
attitude, shimmering through his poetic preferences, became the rigid foundation of his political ideology when he became mayor of Istanbul from 1994-98.
But where Erdoğan claimed in 1994 to be an opponent of the Islamic
standards and values and the religious sharia law system, in 2000 he had changed his negative opinions about democracy by supporting the democratic law and political system.32 Or so it seemed. The reason for this drastic change in his political attitude
at the time was caused by another incident that happened in 1997, next to the
resignation of prime-minister Erbakan. Although Erdoğan was praised because of the many pragmatic changes he made in Istanbul, such as the improvements of the water and electric supply, garbage collection, air quality, infrastructure and security, the secular opposition watched his deeds closely. If needed, the opposition would again halt the rise of Islamic thoughts within politics in order to protect the secular democracy of Atatürk.33 They found their opportunity after Erdoğan recited a poem in
Siirt, a city in the Eastern part of Turkey, by the famous literary father of Turkish nationalism Ziya Gökalp (1876-1924),34 including the following lines:
De moskeeën zijn onze barakken The mosques are our barracks
De koepels onze helmen The domes our helmets
De minaretten onze bajonetten The minarets our bayonets
En de gelovigen onze soldaten. And those who believe our soldiers.35
30 Ibid: p. 286.
31 Lagendijk, 2016: p. 36. Dutch translation. English translation: Marianne de Zeeuw. 32 Ibid: p.38.
33 Ibid: p. 34-35. 34 Okyar, 1984: p.46.
35 Lagendijk, 2016: p. 39. Dutch translation.
21 Although these lines are part of a longer passage, Erdoğan was found guilty by the public prosecutor of inciting religious hatred and violence against the government. The mayor of Istanbul was sentenced with ten months of prison and a life-long exclusion from any political function.36 According to biographer Joost Lagendijk, the
(eventual) four months in prison in 1999 did the opposite of banning the popular mayor of Istanbul from politics and the collective memory of the Turkish people. The fact that the recited poem was originally from Ziya Gökalp, who is seen by the Turks as an important influence on the ideology of Atatürk and the Young Turks, rather than a fundamental Islamic poet, made Erdoğan a victim.37 After this incident, Erdoğan
was forced - but motivated - to change his political course in order to become part of the political field again.
Erdoğan’s interest in the ability of convincing people by the use of artistic media, such as written or spoken texts, poetry and Islamic verses, was an factor during his political come-back and the founding of the ruling AKP. Co-founder Abdullah Gül (1950-), former president of Turkey from 2007-2014,38 entrusted
Erdoğan with the public speeches and debates. In this public performances, Erdoğan offered the people of Turkey a moderated form of democracy that would end the economic and political chaos of the ‘90s and that would seek rapprochement with the European Union. Although Erdoğan was banned from any political activities, he became the symbolic leader of the new party, which represented both European democratic values (within the public sphere) and Islamic values (within the private sphere). In order to convince the last sceptics, Erdoğan told them: ‘De wereld is veranderd en ik ook [the world has changed and so did I].’39 In 2017, we can
re-evaluate the sincerity of this statement.
Whether the AKP politicians meant what they promised or not, the party entered the government in 2002, together with the Kemalist CHP. Within this
coalition, the AKP fulfilled a lot of their promises: the economy progressed, the Kurds in Turkey were given more rights, negotiations with the European Union slowly
progressed, and the political ban of Erdoğan was lifted in 2003 by a change in the
36 Idem. 37 Ibid: p. 40. 38 Ibid: p. 48.
39 Idem. Dutch translation.
22 constitution.40 After the elections of 2007 were won by the AKP, making Gül the
president, Erdoğan legally became the prime-minister of the Republic of Turkey. With the governmental elections of 2014, Erdoğan was not eligible again, unless he
presented himself as a presidential candidate. This candidacy sparked protests throughout the country from 2013 onwards, as a result of a slow but noticeable
change towards a more Islamic based society: women were encouraged to wear their headscarves again in institutions where Atatürk had forbidden religious clothing, the Ottoman language was reintroduced as a mandatory course in schools, praying during work hours became acceptable, the day Mehmet II conquered Istanbul from the Christians became a national holiday, and a lot of investments were made in construction sites. These sites included the construction of many new mosques. Religious architecture can thus be added to the artistic interests of Erdoğan. An illustration of this interest is the construction of the Çamlıca Mosque (Çamlıca Camii, fig. 2), a mosque and religious site on top of a hill on the Asian side of Istanbul. The project, that should be completed in 2017 and costs around 45 million euros, has sparked positive and negative reactions due to its close resemblance to the design of the Sultanahmet Camii, better known as the Blue Mosque, build 400 years earlier.41
2. Haci Mehmet Güner. Çamlıca Camii. 2017.
40 Ibid: p. 50.
41 Date of visit: April 17, 2017.
23 Head architect Haci Mehmet Güner used the Blue Mosque, the most famous
monument of the Ottoman Empire, as an inspiration, but: ‘we will build an even bigger dome than our ancestors.’42 Independent architect Oguz Öztuzcu is against
this emulation of old symbols: ‘Erdoğan is trying to compete with the sultans, […] You simply don't copy symbols - that's degrading the original. […] Unfortunately, this new massive mosque will be a symbol of ignorance, not of knowledge and wisdom.’43 The
function, size, and visibility of the project are in line with the political transformation of Erdoğan, distancing himself and the AKP from Atatürk’s democratic ideals and
moving towards a more Islamic based nation. When he got elected as president of the Republic of Turkey in 2014, the goal of creating his so-called New Turkey became even more realistic.44
3. Mehmet Aksoy. Statue of Humanity. 2006-2011.
Except for religious artistic media, which were an important part of his New Turkey, Erdoğan showed little interest in the field of art. The disinterest in figurative art can be connected to the Islamic culture, in which depictions of life are forbidden. This is also the reason why Erdoğan only portrays himself through video- and photographs and never commissioned a painting or sculpture of himself, in contrast to Atatürk. Erdoğan also never insisted on government expenditure on the arts, and
42 Idem. English translation. 43 Idem. English translation. 44 Udink, 2014: p. 282.
24 during his reign there has been numerous incidents and interferences with the
exposure of certain artworks and closures of theatres, exhibitions spaces and events. A famous example is the case of the demolition of the Statue of Humanity (İnsanlık
Anıtı) in Kars, 2011 (fig. 3).45 Commissioned by the Kars municipality (a Turkish city
close to the Armenian border), two monumental figures by artist Mehmet Aksoy reached each other the hand, representing both Turkey and Armenia. The sculpture was considered to be an important gesture of reconciliation between the two
countries, that had (and still have) a tense relationship ever since the Armenian Genocide and the denial of these horrific events by Turkey. But when prime-minister Erdoğan visited the city in January, 2011, he described the figurative sculpture as a ‘freak’ and ‘monstrosity’.46 Four months later, the sculpture was demolished by the
municipality.
Even though the relation between art and power is a less intensive one during the conservative reign of Erdoğan than it was during the outspoken artistic reign of Atatürk, it is not a less interesting one. Also the art production did not decrease. With the diminishing interest and support from the state, the rise of an international art market motivated Turkish artists to work more independently. The international orientation, motivated by Atatürk in the ‘30s and ‘40s, and the exploration of artistic freedom, created a climate in which contemporary art could make its entrance. Especially in Istanbul, Turkish contemporary art flourished from the ‘60s onwards, exploring and evolving itself at the background of the two contradicting political ideologies of Atatürk and Erdoğan.
1.3. The rise of contemporary art in Istanbul
It is for good reason that the essay on Istanbul by the Turkish curator Duygu Demir is included in the publication Art Cities of the Future : 21st Century Avant-Gardes,47
since the city functions as the centre of the contemporary art scene in Turkey for the last fifty years. Because the book was published in 2013 - the same year in which the Gezi Park Protests took place, which I shall discuss in the third chapter - I shall concentrate on the period from the ‘60s until 2013. I am convinced that the contemporary art scene of Istanbul entered a new period after the protests. The decision to consider the ‘60s as the start of contemporary art in Turkey has got to do
45 March 19, 2017. Conversation: Ferda Çağlayan, Istanbul. 46 March 16, 2017. Conversation: Gökhan Tun. Istanbul. 47 Demir, 2013: p. 115-119.
25 with the art historical assumption that there was a changed mentality of artists, critics and spectators during this decade, as I will also discuss in the next chapter. The result of this changed mentality was a development which moved away from the Western centred art scene, towards a global field of limitless ideologies, media, and inspiration. Contemporary art, the wide overarching art historian term for the period from the ‘60s onwards, left behind the Euro-centric master narrative in which pure art was described as rare and autonomous (according to the influential theory of art historian Clement Greenberg).48 Instead, contemporary art is described as a ‘pluralist
happymix’.49 Because of this pluralism we can only define contemporary art as being
undefinable; an art discipline without restrictions and without the need to be constricted.
In Turkey, contemporary art made its official entrance in the ‘60s too, after the Turkish poet and journalist Bülent Ecevit used the term ‘contemporary art’ (çağaş
sanat) to describe abstract artworks of his contemporaries.50 After the coup of 1960,
a capitalistic left-wing rose. This group showed an interest in this new art movement which created a climate in which private sponsors such as companies, banks, and wealthy families became (and stayed) the first and most important investors in contemporary artists, artworks, and institutions.51 According to Demir, the
avant-garde (and first wave of contemporary) artists of this generation ‘held an unwavering belief in, and commitment to, ideologies of the [Kemalist] state and the ideals of progress associated with modernization.’52 This is in contrast with most artists of the
following decade, who were no longer interested in following an education in the West, but found inspiration in their Byzantine and Islamic past.
Süreyyya Evren, co-editor of the Turkish art survey Users Manual 2.0 :
Contemporary Art in Turkey 1975-2015, describes the decades of the ‘60s, ‘70s and
‘80s as periods of individual avant-gardists instead of an intertwined art scene.53
Artists created in Istanbul alternative exhibitions next to the dominant exhibitions by the many fine art academies, that still functioned as the main education for most contemporary artists. An example were the New Tendencies exhibitions, held every 48 Heartney, 2013: p. 1. 49 Smith, 2006: p. 683. 50 Demir, 2013: p. 115. 51 Bozdoğan, 2008: p. 452. 52 Demir, 2013: p. 115.
53 ‘[…] it was out of the question for contemporary art to take over the scene back then.’
26 two years from 1977-1987.54 The organization of New Tendencies showed and
interest in new, innovative art, and thus provided an important platform for (mostly) non-figurative, visual and conceptual contemporary artists.55 The avant-gardists of
this decades - including a large percentage of women - produced many critical artworks, performances and installations. They were concerned with themes such as female rights, religious suppression, judicial injustice, minorities, and the search for nationalism within the Republic of Turkey. Füsun Onur, Serhat Kiraz, Gülsün
Karamustafa, Hale Tenger, Cengiz Çekil, Ayşe Erkmen, and Halil Altindıre are often named as examples of these avant-garde artists.56
Another critical and activist artist who became notorious in the ‘80s is Bedri Baykam (1957-), who is still an outspoken Kemalist today.57 His early installations
and graffiti in urban public spaces in the ‘80s give an understanding of the freedom of expression that contemporary Turkish artists enjoyed during that time. An example is the moving installation Box of Democracy (1987), which served both as a platform to
4. Bedri Baykam. Box of Democracy. 1987.
54 Ibid: p. 22. 55 Idem.
56 The names of these artists are mentioned in Demir (2013), Kasaba (2008) and Altindıre & Evren (2015). 57 March 19, 2017. Conversation: Bedri Baykam. Istanbul.
27 think about democracy and as a critique on the political situation in Turkey (fig. 4). Spectators were invited to come inside the box and to write on the walls or adjust the form and content of the work. The box is now preserved in a private room in the art gallery of Baykam (Piramid Sanat), leaving its public function. Political artworks of the ‘80s such as Baykam’s box cannot easily be found within art institutions and
museums today, which can be considered as the first example of a change in the freedom of artistic expression from the ‘80s onwards.
Halil Altindıre, co-editor of the Users Manual 2, describes the following decade of the ‘90s as a period in which the field of Turkish contemporary art got
professionalized. This professionalization was stimulated by a growing interest of private industrialists, the opening of contemporary art galleries, and the
nternationalization of Turkish art, artists, curators, and exhibitions.58 Another
important factor (or perhaps the most important) of this professionalization was the founding of the Istanbul Biennial; the biggest gathering of national and international contemporary artists in Turkey, organized every two years from 1987. The Istanbul Biennial, supported by the Istanbul Foundation of Culture and Arts (İstanbul Kültür
Sanat Vakfı, or IKSV), was initiated by Nejat F. Eczacıbaşı, who explains the aim of
the Istanbul Biennial as follows:
We are fully aware of the great importance of artistic exchange between the various nations of the world and the extremely beneficial results that such an exchange produces. We believe that these exhibitions will provide a concrete opportunity for the realisation of such exchanges, and we are thrilled to think that the artistic strength and virtues of our country will be tried and tested in accordance with international standards.59
The Istanbul Biennial was thus, in the eyes of Eczacıbaşı, Turkey’s attempt to
participate in the global field of contemporary art. A successful attempt, according to art historian Marcus Graf, who describes the Istanbul Biennials as a growing
success.60
The Turkish avant-garde and young generation of contemporary artists first had the opportunity to show their work on smaller exhibitions in Istanbul, such as A
58 Altindıre & Evren, 2015: p. 45. English translation. 59 Graf, 2015: p. 120.
28 Cross Section of Avantgarde Turkish Art (1984-1988), A, B, C, D Exhibitions
(1989-1993), Koridor (1988-1995), and the Youth Action (1995-1998).61 With the growing
success of the Istanbul Biennials, observable through the growing numbers of
visitors,62 Turkish artists mentioned above entered the international contemporary art
scene. In 2015 (the year of publication of Graf’s article) the Istanbul Biennial is still considered to be of great importance, ‘especially in times of upcoming religious fundamentalism and political extremism, it is an important symbol of democratic liberty’, according to Graf.63 Graf is with this sentence referring to especially the 13th
Istanbul Biennial of 2013, which I shall discuss later as part of the Gezi Park Protests.64
Turkish contemporary art from the ‘00s until 2013 can be understood as a continuation of professionalization and institutionalization.65 Although artists spread
internationally, Istanbul can still be considered as the centre of Turkish contemporary art. In Istanbul, and especially in the European district Beyoğlu (attachment 1), many private art galleries and museums opened in the last decade, such as the Pera Museum, Sabancı Museum, Galerist, Rodeo, Art, Pilot, Derya Demir’s Galeri Non, Piramid Sanat, and Rampa (attachment 1). There was also a growing interest in artistic research, illustrated and stimulated by a rise of artistic magazines and research institutes such as SALT Galata, PiST, and Depo.
The final step of professionalization of Turkish contemporary art can was the opening of the museum Istanbul Modern in 2004. Istanbul Modern is still the only museum in Turkey with a permanent collection of Turkish modern and contemporary art, complemented with periodical thematic contemporary art exhibitions. The
permanent collection, free access to the (digital) library, temporary exhibitions, and central position in Istanbul makes the museum of great value for the field of Turkish contemporary art.
61 Altindıre & Evren, 2015: p. 24-27. 62 Graf, 2015: p. 124.
11th biennial, 2009: ca. 101.000 visitors
12th biennial, 2011: ca. 110.000 visitors
13th biennial, 2013: ca. 337.500 visitors 63 Ibid: p. 125.
64 For further research on the Biennials: the Van Abbemuseum, located in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, has an
extended archive on the Istanbul Biennials, which can be accessed in the library.
65 The online Turkish platform Turkish Culture gives a comprehensive overview of (contemporary) artists:
29 --
As I wanted to make clear in this chapter, Turkish contemporary art evolved itself on the background of different political ideologies. The two dominant political ideologies in Turkey during the rise of contemporary art until 2013, the year which marks the Gezi Park Protests, are those of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and of Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan. By researching the relation between power and art, one can also research the different political ideologies of the two Turkish presidents. Atatürk introduced the Western standards and values as the foundation of the secular Republic of Turkey in 1923. He ascribed a great role to the arts in his quest of creating a new national feeling, corresponding with the characteristics of his young, modern nation. This national feeling had to be illustrated through Western academic (conservative) art styles, but with Turkish historical and geographical themes. Atatürk did not want to present the young Republic of Turkey simply as copy of a Western nation, but as a combination of Western modern values and standards with his own Turkish pride, culture and history.
Erdoğan’s political ideology during his presidency also represents a combination of both Western and Turkish characteristics. Because of the
interferences of the Kemalists and the army in periods of uprising Islamic political thoughts, the deposal of president Erbakan in 1997, and his own imprisonment, Erdoğan was forced to replace his publicly outspoken Islamic values with the Western orientated political ideology of Atatürk. However, in his years as prime-minister until 2014, the Islamic identity of Erdoğan already began to shimmer
through. This Islamic identity represented the other side of the Turkish pride, culture and history. Atatürk tried to create a unity between Turks by pointing out their modern and secular future, while Erdoğan tried to unify his people by reminding them of their collective Islamic Ottoman past. The construction of mosques throughout Turkey are evidence of this argument.
Despite - and because - of the contradicting political regimes of Atatürk, who introduced the idea of the importance of art within a country, and Erdoğan, who seldom showed an interest in any art other than religious artistic media, Turkish contemporary art was able to develop itself (to the most extent) independent from political interferences. This statement does not exclude contemporary art from power completely, since art is always a product of a certain political climate, as Foucault
30 also argued. Also, a lot of politically critical and activist artworks were produced by the first wave of the Turkish avant-garde, such as the Democracy Box of Bedri Baykam. Nevertheless, the growing numbers of Turkish contemporary artists,
institutions and the Istanbul Biennial until 2013 are mainly due to developments and investments within the Turkish art scene itself. An important observation to add to this notion is the fact that Turkish contemporary art is still centred in a small part of
Istanbul and sparks the interest of a small bourgeois group of the Turkish society. With the Gezi Park Protests in 2013, the relation between contemporary art and power gets more tight, namely in the form of resistance art. In the next chapter, I shall theorize both the relations between art, power and resistance, in order to create an analysis model which we can use while researching the Gezi Park Protests, the art climate after these protests, the coup d’état of 2016, and, eventually, to trace forms of resistance art in the period prior to the presidential referendum on April 12, 2017.
31
2. Art and its political potential in public space
--
When studying art of previous centuries, it becomes clear that there has always been a two-sided relation between power and art. Power can desire a certain form and function of the arts as is described in the first chapter, but an artist can also express a critique on politics. Especially considering the pluralistic character of contemporary art in the globalized world, a lot has been written on the political potential of art, under terms such as utopian art, activism art, protest art and ideological art.66
Another term is resistance art, another subgenre of political art which is the central concept within this research.
According to Eleanor Heartney, the contemporary genre and discourse of
political art got a boost when art historians like herself noticed the social and political
utopian character of Western modern artists, representing styles such as De Stijl, Bauhaus, and the Russian Constructivists, which ‘aimed to expose the corruption and injustices of real societies’ at the beginning of the turbulent 20th century.67 From the
second half of the 20th century, political art and its synonyms can be considered as a
contemporary genre of its own, resembling the global and pluralistic characteristics of contemporary art.
Contemporary art felt (and still feels) the need to abandon the conservative Euro-centric position of the art scene and art history. Instead, every culture and nation has to be considered as a player in the globalising art scene, as a result of international political interactions, decolonization, global political shifts, improved infrastructures of people and knowledge, and the mass-media that brings the peripheral world closer to both artists and academics. The artistic objectification of the Earth, the up rise of a global culture and the awareness of micro-cultures caused a mass-movement in art, which art historian Baz Kershaw describes as contemporary art.68 According to Rachida Triki, artists feel the need to follow the global taste of
66 The academic popularity on the subject of art and politics is also illustrated by the Master Politics, Art,
Resistance, of the University of Kent.
See: <https://www.kent.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/1228/politics-art-resistance#structure> Date of visit: February 1, 2017.
67 Heartney, 2013: p. 366. 68 Kershaw, 1992: p. 7.
32 contemporary art, but also the desire to represent their own culture.69 Within this
dichotomous contemporary art field, political art seems to be an interest of study by art historians as well as theatre scholars, sociologists, political historians,
anthropologists, and philosophers, bringing together a wide interpretation and explanation of political art.
The interdisciplinary and contemporary global interest in art and power makes it difficult to give an enclosed universal definition of political art. It is more useful to look for a definition of political art within the boundaries of this research, namely contemporary resistance art within the Republic of Turkey, another new player in the global narrative of art as the first chapter made clear. In this chapter I shall look into theoretical and personal understandings between the relation of art, power, and resistance on an interdisciplinary level in order to create an understanding of contemporary Turkish resistance art.
2.1. Philosophies and theories on art, power, and resistance
Political art was first distinguished as a contemporary subgenre by art historians such as Hal Foster and Benjamin Buchloh, who appreciated the critical ability of artworks over their aesthetic presence.70 The potential of art to function as a social or political
critique mirrors art historian’s views on the utopian styles of the beginning of the 20th
century. According to Heartney, political art historians argued for the quality of art that espoused an ‘anti-aesthetic stance.’ 71 This is contrary to the dominant theory of the
art historian Clement Greenberg of art as a purely aesthetic and autonomous object. According to another art historian, Joes Segal, it is impossible to study political art versus pure art, as if they are opposites.72 Both Segal and Heartney noticed a shift
within the contemporary art discourse towards equal attention to both the critical and the aesthetic quality of an artwork, because, in Heartney’s words: ‘concern for
aesthetics and critique is often equal, suggesting that beauty may in fact be a
powerful tool […]’.73 What this discussion makes clear, is that contemporary political
69 See: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.proxy.uba.uva.nl:2048/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0033.2010.01707.x/full Date
of visit: May 24, 2017.
70 Heartney, 2013: p. 366. 71 Idem.
72 Segal, 2016: p. 10. 73 Heartney, 2013: p. 366.
33 art (and thus resistance art) always contains a critical element, whether this element is predominant to or incorporated in the aesthetic value of an artwork.
2.1.1. Michel Foucault: power calls for resistance, resistance calls for art
The fact that all theoreticians mentioned above argue for a critical aspect as part of a political artwork, gives rise to the question to what or whom this critique is intended. To answer this question, I want to discuss the theories on power and resistance by French philosopher Michel Foucault, who is considered to be a major influence on the field of art, politics, and power. Despite the terrors of the beginning of the 20th
century, Foucault observed in his literary work of the ‘70s and ‘80s the same
structures of subjectification that had always tied humans to a certain identity.74 In his
analysis on power and politics and their relation with man, Foucault calls for a refusal of this so-called process of subjectification which turns human into beings of
subjects.75 This process is empowered by three forces, namely by truth, power, and
ethics.76 Truth refers to the objective scientific knowledge of especially the discourse
of social sciences within the current episteme.77 Power includes all political
structures, systems of rules and norms, the government and its institutions (as I already introduced in the first chapter). Thirdly, Foucault's conceptualization of ethics implies the idea that the individual can partly determine his or her identity. Within his aim of escaping subjectification by truth and power, ethics play an important role for Foucault, since this escape must be firstly motivated by actions of the subject itself. Although he ascribes great importance to the three forces separately, Foucault is mostly interested in the interaction between these three forces in order to determine the conditions, limits, and escape of subjectification.78 Within this research, the
interaction between power, ethics, and their modes of subjectification of the individual will be at the centre, since I will link them to the identification of resistance art.
According to Foucault there is an opposition in our modern era: on the one side, the process of subjectification will always be carried out by the three axes of subjectification, namely truth, power, and ethics, but, on the other side, a group of
74 Simons, 1996: p. 1. 75 Foucault, 1982: p. 216. 76 Foucault, 1984: p. 351.
77 An episteme is, according to Foucault, a prolonged scientific period in which certain knowledge, assumptions,
data, conclusions and theories are being considered as the truth.
34 people will always try to escape this process.79 With this paradox comes two
important concepts whose existence depends on each other: ‘constraining limitations and limitless freedom.’80 It is a part of human nature to always want to resist the
established order of power and its restrictions, in order to replace this with a desired form of new power – under the guise of freedom – which again creates the possibility for others to resist it. Resistance takes a physical form when individuals gather and demand for a new form of freedom, and thus a new form of power. Foucault does not take a stand against the presence of power and resistance, but against their
returning patterns.81 Within these patterns, humans are always a product of
subjectification through power, whether they accept, resist, or cross the limitations of a ruling government.
The vast majority of people accept the limitations - rules, codes and borders - of power. Those who offer resistance against these limitations face physical and mental discipline, the repetitive instrument of subjectification by power, executed through institutions such as prisons and schools.82 According to Foucault, discipline
is an essential part in the process of normalization, in which the ruling regime portrays itself as the exemplary representation of the current standards and values that are deemed to be taken over by those who are ruled.83 When the government
presents itself as the ‘normal’, the resisting other will be called the madman.84
Resistance against both discipline, normalization, and the ideology of power, derives in most cases from marginalised groups in society.85 An important remark Foucault
makes on this notion, is the difference between power and dominance: resistance is only possible within the realm of power, but not within a regime of dominance. One can speak of a dominant regime when discipline successfully prevents the madmen to gather, resist and transgress the limitations of power.
Resistance is in its first stages an individual mental resistance, rooted within Foucault’s theories on ethics. At the core of understanding this concept are the relation of the individual with himself and his moral actions, desires, sexual 79 Ibid: p. 3. 80 Idem. 81 Ibid: p. 4. 82 Foucault, 1979: p. 170. 83 Ibid: p. 308.
84 Simons: p. 71. - The distinction between the normal versus the madman is important when I will discuss
political actions of the Turkish president Erdoğan in chapter 4.
35 preference, and thoughts. Ethics (and the degree of subjectification) are shortly described by Foucault as how ‘one performs oneself.’86 The word ‘performs’ is
interesting here, since I will use the word in different conjugations later in this chapter. Foucault compares the need of self-reflection and self-performance within the ethical realm of subjectification with the dominant art-historian theory of Clement Greenberg, who classified true art as being purely aesthetical and self-reflexive. Just like aesthetic reflection in art, Foucault argues for aesthetic reflection as the essential part of the process of evaluation and resistance within oneself, in order to obtain independence of all forces of subjectification. But, as Foucault admits, only few can escape all forces of subjectification.87 Because, even when one understands and
performs oneself and resists the subjectification of power as being normal or
disciplined, one will probably become the subject of the madman. In this way, the
individual is again subordinated to the structures of power.88
According to Foucault, resistance takes form in both individual (ethics) and like-minded collective actions and moments of transgressing limitations, without erasing these limitations.89 In order to illuminate the limitations of power, art can play
an important role. Except for several modernist autonomous works of art (which Foucault described as purely aesthetic) art can always be related to power. After all, art is the object of a subject, the artist, whose identity partly derives from the
subjectification of power Following the subjectification of the artist within the regime of power, art can be placed within, against, or outside the limitations of power.90 In
line with this theory of Foucault, every artwork can thus be considered as political art. But within a resistance, art can really function as the visualization of political critique and the ideology of the madmen.
2.1.2. The representative art regime of Jacques Rancière
To understand the way in which political art functions as the critique of a resistance as defined by Foucault, it is useful to take a closer look into a fraction of the theories of Jacques Rancière, another French philosopher. Rancière stands in line with Foucault because of his likewise interdisciplinary approach of politics, art, and
86 Foucault, 1987: p. 27. 87 Simons, 1996: p. 69. 88 Ibid: p. 34. 89 Ibid: p. 69. 90 Foucault, 1984: p. 351.
