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Semiha Berksoy: Aria of All Colors
Retrospective of the opera singer, actor and painter Semiha Berksoy (1910-2004), with more than 200 works.
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Berksoy was eight when her mother died in the Spanish flu, nine months pregnant with a boy. She painted her for decades. In a 1965 portrait the mother has large coal eyes, a cross-shaped mouth and a pink heart shaped like a flower.
Berksoy (1910-2004) was Turkey's first female opera singer, sang in Berlin for Richard Strauss's 75th birthday, and performed at New York's Lincoln Center at 89. The show holds more than 200 works, grouped by theme, not date. At the centre you stand in the Red Room, built like a stage, among her Tosca, Salome and Fidelio. Around it are charcoal nudes, paintings on bedsheets, film clips, sound recordings and a re-creation of her bedroom, piano included.
Artforum's Kaya Genç said it does justice to her "dreamlike imagination" and her "lifelong exploration of loss". Expect that loss to be literal: the mother paintings return to it again and again. Entry is in the 1,000 TL museum ticket, Fridays run to 20:00, and it closes on 22 November.
No te pierdas
The Red Room
Look for the room staged like an opera set, hung with her paintings of the roles she sang, Tosca, Salome and Fidelio among them.
Her bedroom, rebuilt
Her bed, piano, jewellery, clothes and her mother's hundred-year-old sewing machine, first shown as an artwork in Bonn in 2000.
My Mother the Painter Fatma Saime (1965)
Her mother with large coal eyes, a cross-shaped mouth and a pink, flower-shaped heart.
Ariadne auf Naxos (1998)
An oil-on-cloth self-portrait of her 1939 Berlin role, arms spread to the audience, wavy patterns on her dress like an open book.
Human Being in Infinity (1991)
A tiny figure on a huge beige cloth, under a large circular hole cut out of the top.
Ideal para
- Visitas de noche
- Entendidos
- Días de lluvia
Mejor evitar si
You want a career told in order: the show is grouped by theme, not chronology.
Con niños
The museum runs workshops for children and young people around the show, on stage performance, painting and music. Under-12s get in free.
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Créditos de las imágenes
8
- Semiha Berksoy: Aria of All ColorsCourtesy of Istanbul Modern
- Neş'e ErdokCourtesy of Istanbul Museum of Painting and Sculpture
- Seyahat Sanatı: From the Sadberk Hanım Museum and Ömer Koç CollectionsCourtesy of Meşher
- 15 Years at Salt: Exhibition PostersPhoto: Metean Bars (Salt)
- Istanbul ModernAnother Believer / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Istanbul Museum of Painting and SculptureAntoloji / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Museum of Innocenceuholz / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- SALT BeyoğluMtls88 / Wikimedia Commons, CC0