The Bridge and the Break: How Istanbul Biennial Navigates Cultural Crossroads in Times of Crisis

In the annals of international art biennials, few have embodied their city's character as profoundly as the Istanbul Biennial. Since 1987, this exhibition has served as more than just a showcase for contemporary art—it has functioned as a barometer of Turkey's cultural temperature, a bridge between East and West, and increasingly, a site of contestation about artistic freedom, curatorial independence, and the role of art in society.

The recent curatorial crisis that postponed the 18th edition from 2024 to 2025 represents both a breaking point and a potential rebirth for one of the art world's most politically charged biennials. The controversy, which saw the rejection of unanimously recommended curator Defne Ayas in favor of Iwona Blazwick—and Blazwick's subsequent stepping down amid protests—exposed deep fractures in Turkey's art ecosystem while simultaneously catalyzing a radical reimagining of what a biennial could be.

The appointment of Christine Tohmé as curator brings a figure uniquely positioned to navigate these troubled waters. As the founder of Beirut's Ashkal Alwan and curator of the boundary-breaking Sharjah Biennial 13, Tohmé has spent decades working in contexts where art must negotiate political volatility, economic precarity, and questions of representation. Her proposal for a three-year biennial titled "The Three-Legged Cat" represents not just a curatorial vision but a structural intervention in the biennial format itself.

This extended timeframe—with exhibitions and programs spanning 2025 to 2027—directly addresses one of the fundamental tensions in contemporary biennial culture: the pressure to produce spectacular events on rigid two-year cycles that often prioritize international visibility over local engagement. By stretching the biennial across three years, Tohmé aims to "reclaim time" as she puts it, allowing for deeper community connections and more sustained artistic processes.

The Istanbul Biennial's history reads like a chronicle of Turkey's own journey through globalization, democratization, and recent authoritarian turns. The 2013 edition, which coincided with the Gezi Park protests, saw tear gas wafting through exhibition venues and forced a retreat from public spaces—a vivid illustration of how the biennial has always been entangled with Istanbul's political realities. The 2015 edition's 545,000 visitors marked a high point in attendance, but subsequent years have seen the biennial grappling with increasing political pressures and questions about its relationship to state power.

What makes the current moment particularly significant is how it reflects broader challenges facing international art institutions operating in politically fraught contexts. The controversy over Ayas's rejection—widely believed to be connected to her refusal to deny the Armenian genocide while curating Turkey's 2015 Venice Biennale pavilion—highlighted how historical memory and contemporary politics continue to shape cultural production in Turkey.

Yet the crisis has also generated unexpected opportunities. The open call for artists announced for the 2025 edition marks the first time in over a decade that the Istanbul Biennial has adopted this more democratic approach to artist selection. The formation of a new advisory board with clearer regulations about curator selection suggests an institution attempting to rebuild trust through transparency.

As Istanbul itself transforms—with 17.4 million international tourists in 2023 making it the world's most-visited city—the biennial faces the challenge of maintaining critical edge while operating in an increasingly commercialized cultural landscape. Tohmé's emphasis on "self-preservation and futurities" as themes for the first leg of the biennial speaks to both personal and collective strategies for survival in precarious times. The three-year format allows for what she calls investment in "the creative process, everyday exchanges, openings, studio visits, and reading groups"—the less visible but perhaps more transformative aspects of artistic production.

The Istanbul Biennial's evolution from a relatively conventional international exhibition to this experimental three-year format represents more than institutional innovation. It suggests a model for how art institutions might respond to crisis not through retrenchment but through radical reimagining. In a world where biennials proliferate but often struggle to differentiate themselves, Istanbul's willingness to fundamentally rethink its temporal and spatial logic could influence how we understand the role of recurring exhibitions in fostering genuine cultural exchange rather than art world tourism.