La delicatezza come resistenza. Intervista alla curatrice del Padiglione Turchia alla Biennale di Venezia
For the 2026 Venice Biennale, the Turkey Pavilion, commissioned by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), will present "A Kiss on the Eyes" by artist Nilbar Güreş, curated by Başak Doğa Temür. The exhibition takes its title from a Turkish expression conveying affectionate closeness without intrusion, and features a mix of new productions and earlier works spanning sculpture, installation, painting, and works on paper and fabric. In an interview, curator Temür explains that the project avoids a retrospective or didactic approach, instead creating a spatial rhythm of approach, pause, and slight withdrawal, where intimacy, politics, irony, and fragility press against one another.
This project matters because it positions Güreş's practice as increasingly urgent in its exploration of thresholds—bodies that never fully coincide with the spaces they inhabit, identities that resist simple definition, and tensions that need no emphasis. By weaving together works from different periods, the pavilion highlights a deep continuity in Güreş's sensitivity to boundaries and the politics of proximity. The curator's deliberate avoidance of a single narrative or stable reading reflects a broader curatorial shift toward open-ended, relational exhibition-making that respects the viewer's space while engaging with pressing social and identity issues.