Gülsün Karamustafa

Gülsün Karamustafa (born 1946) is a painter, filmmaker and sculptor, living and working in Istanbul, recognised as "one of Turkey’s most outspoken and celebrated artists". Karamustafa’s work explores socio-political issues in modern Turkey using personal and historical narratives, addressing themes including sexuality and gender, exile and ethnicity, and the role of religion and secularism in society.

Karamustafa was born in Ankara, Turkey in 1946. Her father was a radio presenter Hikmet Münir Ebcioğlu. From 1958 - 1963 Karamustafa attended high school at Ankara College. In 1969, she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts, Istanbul, where she was taught by Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu. Soon after her graduation, she was convicted for concealing a political fugitive in her home in Istanbul and had her passport annulled as a result, leaving her unable to travel or emigrate until 1987. She gained a PhD from the Department of Art at the School of Applied Arts in Istanbul in 1981.

My relation with art did not develop from personal satisfaction or from the need to glorify what I do. I have been carrying art as a heavy mission from the very beginning. I always have the thought that I need to produce and carry this production to a significant place.

Karamustafa's works can be broadly categorised into three thematics:

• works which explore migration, identity, memory and boundaries.
• works which explore her personal history and experiences and their relation to the above themes
• works which explore gender and femininity

She works across a variety of different mediums, using varied techniques and methods: installation, ready-mades, photographs and video.

During Turkey's military coups in the early 1970s, Karamustafa and her husband actively participated in student protests and in 1971 were arrested as a result. She explores this in an artwork titled The Stage created in 1998 where she features a photo taken at the courtroom. Her time in prison is documented in the 1972 series Prison Paintings, displayed for the first time in her 2013 solo exhibition A Promised Exhibition at SALT, Istanbul. In talking about the series, Karamustafa explained “I made them in order to remember, in order to be able to keep [what happened] in mind. After serving time in the Maltepe, Selimiye and Sağmalcılar prisons in İstanbul, I was sent to İzmit Prison to be with the ones sentenced to penal servitude for life ".

Her first professional exhibition took place in 1978 at the Istanbul Taksim Art Gallery.

She participated in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th International Istanbul Biennials, the 3rd Kwangju, 8th Havana, 3rd Cetinje and 1st Seville Biennial.

Selected Solo Shows

• Chronographia, Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart - Berlin (2016-2017)
• Swaddling the Baby, Villa Romana, Florence (2015)
• An Ordinary Love, Rampa, Istanbul (2014)
• Talisman, Rodeo Gallery, Istanbul (2013)
• The Apartment Building, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens (2012)
• Etiquette, ifa Gallery, Berlin and Stuttgart (2011)
• Mobile Stages, Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg (2008)
• Bosphorus 1954, Kunstmuseum Bonn (2008)
• Memory of a Square, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich (2006)

Selected Group Exhibitions

Karamustafa's work has been collected internationally by public and private institutions.

• Tate Gallery. Memory of a Square 2005 is currently on display at Tate Modern.
• Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw
• Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
• MOMENTUM, Berlin
• Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
• MUMOK, Vienna
• Sammlung Essl, Klosterneuburg
• Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven

• "Gülsün Karamustafa | Tate". www.tate.org.uk. Retrieved 2016-03-05. 
• "MCA – Gülsün Karamustafa: Double Reality". mcachicago.org. Retrieved 2016-03-05. 
• "GÜLSÜN KARAMUSTAFA Momentum Worldwide". Monmentumworldwide.org. Retrieved 2016-03-29. 
• agence, GAYA - La nouvelle. "Online collections | City of Paris museum of modern art". www.mam.paris.fr. Retrieved 2016-03-05. 
• "Gülsün Karamustafa". www.mumok.at. Retrieved 2016-03-05. 
• "Gülsün Karamustafa". Retrieved 2016-03-05. 
• "Van Abbemuseum: collectie". vanabbemuseum.nl. Retrieved 2016-03-05.