Contemporary art collecting in Turkey (1990-2010)

The scope of the thesis with the title "Contemporary Art Collecting in Turkey (1990-2010)" consists of the art collection of capital owners aspiring to manage issues of culture and arts between the years of 1990 and 2010, and the reflections of collecting in Turkey. For this purpose, the practices of collecting artistic works from the Ottoman Empire to 1990's of Turkish Republic are summarized, and the new understanding developed in the 1990's reaching towards the 2010s is problematized. International music festivals continuously held by Istanbul Foundation of Culture and Arts since 1973 has been a prestigious event where private sector participates along with the government in terms of arts. Private galleries and galleries of banks started to promote their exhibitions and artists with little catalogs, and most of the capital owners had owned an art collection by the 1980s. 1990's are characterized as a period when political instabilities are experienced; alignment projects for the global economy are developed; economic crisis, privatization policies, and disorder in both domestic and foreign politics are experienced; and governed by coalition governments. During this process, collectors changed the paradigm, put emphasis on the consistency of their collections and sold some of their works out. Through the end of the 1990s, the privatization of culture began to be the subject of discussions. During the period between the 1990s and 2000s, one of the much-debated subjects was the "contemporary art museums"; and Proje 4L Güncel Sanat Müzesi (Project 4L Contemporary Art Museum) opened by Sevda and Can Elgiz in 2001 was followed by Platform Garanti Güncel Sanat Merkezi (Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center) which was also opened in the same year. Sabancı Museum was opened in 2002. Among the new art institutions opened after the issuance of Promotion Law are İstanbul Modern Sanat Müzesi (Istanbul Modern Art Museum) (2004), Pera Museum (2005), Santral İstanbul (2007), ARTER (2010), SALT Beyoğlu and SALT Galata (2011). Within the scope of the thesis, specifically the understanding and problems of collection in the period between 1990 and 2010 are to be discussed, and the emphasis is to be laid on collections of Nahit – Huma Kabakçı, Murat Balkan, Mustafa Taviloğlu, Banu – Hakan Çarmıklı, who turned their collections into museums or take this purpose as a vision, and the museums of Elgiz, Sabancı, İstanbul Modern, and Pera Museum in detail.