Gülsün Karamustafa

Kunsthalle Wien | Vienna, Austria

SAHA supports Gülsün Karamustafa's new project at Kunsthalle Wien, held between 20 April 2023 – 28 January 2024. No Feeling is Final.The Skopje Solidarity Collection is curated by What, How & for Whom / WHW, the curatorial collective formed by the institution's artistic directors Ivet Ćurlin, Nataša Ilić and Sabina Sabolovići, which also curated the 11th Istanbul Biennial in 2009 titled What Keeps Mankind Alive?

The focus of the large-scale international group exhibition No Feeling Is Final. The Skopje Solidarity Collection presents the remarkable collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) Skopje, its genesis and the historical and political context in which such an unusual project was possible. After the severe earthquake that shook Skopje (then Yugoslavia) in 1963, significant efforts were made to help rebuild the devastated city, in a grand gesture of international solidarity. The central cultural element of the reconstruction was the establishment of a museum for contemporary art and artists from all over the world donated thousands of works of art to Skopje.

Other participants of the exhibition are Brook Andrew, Yane Calovski & Hristina Ivanoska, Siniša Ilić, Iman Issa. What all the artists have in common is a particular approach to rereading and reworking histories of art and society. Gülsün Karamustafa combines her curatorial approach to the museum's collection with her own artistic practice by selecting works from the MOCA Skopje collection.

Gülsün Karamustafa (1946, Ankara) is a visual artist and filmmaker recognised as "one of Turkey’s most outspoken and celebrated artists." Using personal and historical narratives, Karamustafa explores socio-political issues in modern Turkey and addresses themes including sexuality-gender, exile-ethnicity, and displacement-migration. "Hailed as one of Turkey’s most influential contemporary artists," her work reflects on the traumatic effects of nation building, as it responds to the processes of modernization, political turbulence, and civil rights in a period that includes the military coups of 1960, 1971, and 1980. Karamustafa was one of the laureates of the 2014 Prince Claus Award, a prestigious award presented to "individuals for their outstanding achievements in the field of culture and development and the positive effect of their work on their direct environment and the wider cultural or social field." She lives and works in Istanbul.

Karamustafa's works are held in many public and private institutions, such as; EMST National Contemporary Art Museum Athens/Atina, GR; Istanbul Modern, TR; Ludwig Museum Cologne, DE; MCA Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, US; MUMOK Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Viyana, AT; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, FR; Warsaw Museum of Modern Art (Museum Sztuki Nowoczesnej w Warszawie), Varşova, PL; Neues Museum Nürnberg, DE, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, US; Tate Modern, Londra, GB, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, NL, Wien Museum, Viyana, AT.

About Kunsthalle Wien

The Kunsthalle Wien is dedicated to art and its role in processes of social change since the opening in 1992. She produces exhibitions, researches artistic practices and supports local and international artists. She anchors her knowledge of international contemporary art in and for Vienna and campaigns for the fruitfulness of artistic ways of thinking in all areas of public life.

In May 2001, the Kunsthalle Wien moved into its new main building in the Museumsquartier, designed by the architects Ortner & Ortner. The yellow container on Karlsplatz, which was also converted into a glass pavilion in 2001, is the Kunsthalle Wien's second location and, like the building in the Museumsquartier, offers an intensive program of exhibitions and events.