İstanbul Municipality intiates collaboration with Tate Modern

Photo: Mahir Polat/Twitter

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A municipal official in İstanbul has announced a new collaboration between the municipality and Tate Modern, a prominent contemporary art institution based in the UK.

The partnership aims to foster artistic exchange and promote cultural dialogue on a global scale, said Mahir Polat, the cultural assets director of the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality.

Polat hosted Neil McConnon, the director of international partnerships at Tate Modern, at Artİstanbul Feshane, a historic venue that was once a fez production factory during the Ottoman era and has now been transformed into an art gallery. It will now be at the center of the collaboration between the municipality an Tate Modern.

"İstanbul is steadily emerging as a thriving hub of culture and art. Today, we had the pleasure of hosting Neil McConnon, representing Tate Modern, one of the world's foremost contemporary art institutions, at Artİstanbul Feshane," Polat said in a tweet.

The collaboration comes in the wake of a recent incident at Artİstanbul Feshane, where an exhibition titled "Starting from the Middle" faced attempted attacks by conservative groups. One of the incidents resulted in the damage of an artwork in early July.

The groups alleged that the pieces included elements of pagan rituals, nudity, photographs portraying hostility towards law enforcement, films advocating LGBTI+ propaganda, and promoting socialist ideologies. (TY/VK)