Metrics of Modernity
Art and Development in Postwar Turkey
Sarah-Neel Smith
- 232 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
Metrics of Modernity
Art and Development in Postwar Turkey
Sarah-Neel Smith
About This Book
In this vivid portrait of the art world of 1950s Turkey, Sarah-Neel Smith offers a new framework for analyzing global modernisms of the twentieth century: economic development. After World War II, a cohort of influential Turkish modernists built a new art scene in Istanbul and Ankara. The entrepreneurial female gallerist Adalet Cimcoz, the art critic (and future prime minister) BĂŒlent Ecevit, and artists like Aliye Berger, FĂŒreya Koral, and Bedri Rahmi EyĂŒbo?lu were not only focused on aesthetics. On the canvas, in criticism, and in the gallery, these cultural pioneers also grappled with economic questionsâattempting to transform their country from a "developing nation" into a major player in the global markets of the postwar period. Smith's book publishes landmark works of Turkish modernism for the first time, along with an innovative array of sourcesâfrom gossip columns to economic theoryâto reveal the art world as a key site for the articulation of Turkish nationhood at midcentury.