The Ara Güler Museum, established to preserve the memory of the eponymous artist, photographer and photojournalist who passed away in 2018, has reopened for the first time since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
The museum, located in the historical former Bomonti beer factory in Istanbul’s Şişli district, is now welcoming art enthusiasts with the new exhibition: “Aynı Rüyanın Içinde” (“Inside the Same Dream”).
The showcase brings the "Master of Leicia" Güler together with literary legend Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar in a tale of the city of Istanbul.
While Tanpınar is positioned as the intellectual memory of history with his texts, Güler is shown as the master of recording the city's history visually through his photographic works. The museum also features a biographic animation of Güler's darkroom, along with original objects from within and examples of his contact prints.
Meanwhile, an “Inside the Same Dream” book has been prepared together with Dergah Publishing to offer those in attendance a deeper analysis of the two artistic figures and their place in the city, inviting art enthusiasts to witness an Istanbul story in which truth and fiction are intertwined.
With this exhibition, which can be visited until Feb. 28, 2021, the Istanbul dream of Tanpınar and Güler, two nostalgic flaneurs who devoted themselves to aestheticizing lost beauties, will continue in the memory of those who always keep an eye on the ever-changing nature of the city from past to present.
In addition, another gallery of the museum features an exhibition titled “Hayalimdeki İstanbul Ya Bir Vapurdur Ya Bir Kuş” ("Istanbul in My Dream is Either a Ferry or a Bird"), centered on the book model consisting of drawings by Güler for his book “Yitirilmiş Renkler” ("Vanished Colors").
The exhibition includes a model book and selection of colorful Istanbul photographs, alongside other notes and correspondences, and is guaranteed to delight art lovers and fans of the late photographic legend.
