Francisco Castanon Fernandez
“Street art is any art developed in public spaces — that is, “in the streets” — though the term usually refers to art of an illicit nature, as opposed to government sponsored initiatives. The term can include traditional graffiti artwork, stencil graffiti, sticker art, and street poster art, video projection, art intervention, guerrilla art, flash mobbing and street installations.
The motivations and objectives that drive street artists are as varied as the artists themselves. There is a strong current of activism and subversion in urban art. Street art can be a powerful platform for reaching the public, and frequent themes include adbusting, subvertising and other culture jamming, the abolishment of private property and reclaiming the streets. Other street artists simply see urban space as an untapped format for personal artwork, while others may appreciate the challenges and risks that are associated with installing illicit artwork in public places. However the universal theme in most, if not all street art, is that adapting visual artwork into a format which utilizes public space, allows artists who may otherwise feel disenfranchised, to reach a much broader audience than traditional artwork and galleries normally allow.”
This is how Wikipedia dscribes street art. Although you can come across graffiti and some rare samples of street art while roaming around Istanbul, the concept as described in Wikipedia is a rather new one for the inhabitants of this city.
Now, two young Turks have decided to introduce street art to the Istanbullites, but under the roof of a gallery that they named Milk Gallery & Design Store.
Can Basyigit and Elif Cevik, the founders of the gallery, say that they spend their spare time working in the advertising industry.
The gallery was called “Milk” because they wanted to underline the purity of the art they want to introduce to the Istanbullites. In addition to that, they also operate as a design store where a wide variety of objects ranging from t-shirts to toys are handcrafted and put on sale.
In the West the street art scene has grown and produced many start artists especially during the last 5 years. The TATE Modern in London organized an exhibition of street art last year in August and put on display the works of various street artists. The recognition by Tate gave a new impetus to the street art sector.
The founders of the Milk Gallery also say that the toy culture is making an amazing impact in the same sector with many people collecting toys from different cultures.
The objective of Milk is to represent and introduce local and international artists working in these fields. Until now, the founders say, the art scene in Turkey has been based on various galleries, most of them having similar vision and perspective; in other words, concentrating on contemporary and classical art.
Milk Gallery & Design Store is the first to focus on street art, they say.
Milk’s main aim is to spread street art culture in Turkey and support local artists by introducing them to the international scene. Milk Gallery & Design Store is also affiliated with an international network calling itself Rojo Artspaces.
Rojo describes itself as the representative of “the global network of artspaces, a worldwide alliance with a unique goal to create a friendly open flow of artists and art through its members looking to develop a stronger sense of community. Rojo promotes collaboration between the network members and opens doors to other agents from the art scene. Rojo artspace network is made out of selected cool art galleries and hybrid spaces. Rojo artspace network membership is by invitation only.”
Exhibitions at the Milk gallery include this year works by various artists and groups as Meredith Dittmar, The London Police, 123Klan, PEZ, eBoy, Ayşe Küçük, Engin Öztekin, Ndeur, Rebecca Ward, Joe Ledbetter, Guy McKinley, Matei Apostolescu etc. Exhibitions will rotate every 4 weeks, on the first Thursday of every month, Milk will present a new exhibition. During the exhibitions, artists’ individual works will be on sale in the gallery store.
Design Store’s product line includes various brands such as DGV, Ndeur, Uglydolls, eBoy and Domestic. Also the buyers can find books, small art pieces to 2 square feet pieces, t-shirts, toys, posters, high heel shoes and toys. The prices change from 25TL to 2.000.
Milk Gallery & Design Store is located in Taksim, Beyoğlu that is also the core of street art. Taksim is the heart of İstanbul and is packed with popular clubs, restaurants, bars, galleries, and historical places. It is said that every day between 12pm to 2pm two million people pass through İstiklal Street.
Milk’s core target group contains advertisers, design studios, production companies, artists, designers and design students. Consumer purchasing power is up to $100,000.
The opening took place on the 5th of February featuring eBoy. 658 people attended the reception, 900 people visited whatismilk.com in two days, and 102 artists sent their portfolios in three days. News of the opening was placed in various online and offline media.
Nowadays you can follow the Meredith Dittmar exhibition at Milk Gallery until 28 of March. She is an artist living and what she terms as playing in Portland OR, USA. She grew up in a world of pet pigs, horses, hay-forts and spy games. She followed this with an education in computer science, a career in interactive design, a compulsive need to create, and a drive to seek. These are the major elements of her personality and work. Dittmars human-animal-plant-energy amalgams contain threads of common elements and colors to express deep levels of union across themes of biology, technology, and consciousness. Her characters are frequently involved in quiet expressive moments or lounge facing their audience so they can share their inner space. She sees the act of spontaneous artistic creation as part of a larger practice of being present, and a way to better understand herself and reality.
The next exhibition will be on 3 of April until 3 of May by a local young artist based in Istanbul with a great potential called Ayşe Küçük.
Milk has started a new artistic movement in Turkey and created a strong pulse.
Links:
http://www.whatismilk.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/milkgallery
http://www.myspace.com/gallerymilk
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=38891004698
