Have You Seen This Painting? / ‘Έχετε δει αυτή τη ζωγραφιά; / Avez-vous vu ce Tableau?
Mayıs 2026-Nisan 2027
İstanbul
The project "Have You Seen This Painting? / ‘Έχετε δει αυτή τη ζωγραφιά; / Avez-vous vu ce Tableau?" aims to weave connections between different forms and layers of loss. An oil painting by the artist İbrahim Çallı, titled *Nude*, which is part of the collection of the Ankara Museum of Painting and Sculpture, is no longer on display following the museum’s renovation. In fact, not a single nude work is currently exhibited at the museum. The removal of representations of the female body from the public sphere may, at best, indicate that the work has been moved into storage; at worst, it evokes the many other artworks that have “disappeared” over the years, having potentially been sold unofficially and without being recorded.
The project’s other main axis focuses on personal and collective forms of loss through the stories of Agati, a Greek model who posed at the Academy in the 1940s—including for this particular work—and her daughter Ketty. The experiences of the late Agati and her daughter Ketty, now 76, who was forced to migrate to Athens in the early 1960s, point to the “disappearance” of the Greek community from Istanbul and Turkey, as well as to the losses experienced by contemporary Turkish society in terms of diversity and collective memory.
