This article was automatically translated from the original Turkish version.
Murat Kösemen
Contemporary İstanbul is an international art fair that has been held since 2006 bringing together representatives of contemporary art from diverse geographical regions and is recognized as one of Türkiye’s leading art events. Held annually in İstanbul, the fair serves as a crucial meeting point for galleries artists collectors and art professionals.
Having completed its twentieth edition Contemporary İstanbul has maintained its position as Türkiye’s largest contemporary art fair through international collaborations and a large-scale organizational structure. This year a dedicated space was created for US-based galleries through the Focus America program enhancing the fair’s global profile with prestigious collections and institutional partnerships. The choice of Tersane İstanbul as the venue further emerged as a strategic decision reflecting the fair’s pursuit of spatial experience and visual grandeur. However this kind of institutional growth visibility and aesthetic architectural preference has also been observed to generate serious challenges regarding art’s publicness critical production and socio-economic accessibility.
First among the most debated issues regarding CI 2025 was the high admission fees. This pricing policy makes access difficult for the average city resident limiting the relationship between art and the public sphere and narrowing CI’s audience to an elite circle defined by economic capital. Moreover the opening program shaped by private preview days VIP tours and institutional partnerships transforms the fair not only into a cultural event but also into a site of class-based division. In this context CI risks turning art from a social experience into a commodity targeted exclusively at privileged groups. This dynamic weakens the participatory relationship between art and the public sphere and leads cultural events away from the principle of social inclusivity.
Although CI positions itself on its website in capital letters as a “citizen-oriented contemporary art platform” the selection of an ultra-luxurious and sterile space like Tersane İstanbul has largely undermined the fair’s connection to the city. This space rebranded and detached from its historical context along the Haliç symbolically reveals how art is being removed from the street everyday life and urban dynamics. It can be argued that this choice restricts art’s potential for interaction with urban communities isolating it both spatially and discursively from society. The connection between the fair and İstanbul’s socio-cultural diversity is increasingly severed and the relationship with the city remains at a representational level.
The exhibited works are generally visually striking but conceptually weak risk-averse and selected with primary attention to collector value. This trend transforms the fair’s artistic repertoire shifting its selection criteria toward market dynamics and pushing critical artistic production into the background. After all the transformative power of art does not lie merely in generating aesthetic pleasure but in making social issues visible creating discomfort and opening up intellectual space. In this edition the fair’s shift from being an art fair to functioning more as a brand showcase has become even more evident.
CI 2025’s institutional maturity and global visibility may be regarded as a success but this success has been built at the expense of art’s social function accessibility and critical character. The admission fees reaching a level that excludes the public the rupture of spatial ties with the city and the content-related caution in the selection all increase the risk of the fair transforming into a purely market-driven art event. The future of Contemporary İstanbul directly depends on how seriously it will address these criticisms and whether it can reposition art not merely as an elite practice but as a social one.