Open Library
20 March – 16 June
Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center
Istiklal Cad. No: 136, Beyoglu,
Istanbul, 34430, TR
T: 90 212 293 23 61
F: 90 212 293 30 71
Open Library is a rethinking of Platform’s well-visited exhibition space in the form of a library. The project creates a moment of pause for the frenetic stream of people passing by via the consumption oriented experience of the pedestrianised Istiklal Caddesi. By setting up an unexpected threshold between the street outside and the normally white-walled gallery, Platforms function becomes blurred and its current status can be perceived as a library or as idiosyncratic exhibition. The design of the space builds on this inquiry by constructing a bleacher-type seating, similar to that found in sports halls, along one wall of the gallery, facing an extensive run of bookshelves on the other. In Istanbul street-level libraries are few and far between, and the concept of the library as a place of warming up, extended curiosity, daydreaming, dozing off and random perusal is reduced to a condition of compulsory and tedious research.
Open Library will host weekly curated mini-libraries, readings, discussions, screenings, conversations and other programmes to transform the space into a lively public sphere. In addition, the project will communicate and display Platforms unrelenting archives, which combine many acquisitions with thousands of donations from friendly institutions, artists, critics and curators.
Open Library was designed by Istanbul-based architecture practice superpool in collaboration of quinze & milan.
For further information please contact:
platform@garanti.com.tr
