Nilbar Güreş: Velvet Stare

Arter opens its new season on September 11 with Velvet Stare, which marks Nilbar Güreş’s first institutional solo exhibition in Türkiye.

Alongside the new addition to its programme, Arter also presents two ongoing exhibitions: the group exhibition Under Pressure Above Water and Franz Erhard Walther’s solo exhibition Attempt to be a Sculpture.

Nilbar Güreş: Velvet Stare
Curator: Emre Baykal
September 11, 2025–April 12, 2026

Velvet Stare delves into Nilbar Güreş’s practice, which blurs the boundaries between humans and non-humans, reality and fiction, representation and abstraction. Presenting an extensive selection spanning the artist’s early pieces to her most recent productions, the exhibition encompasses works realised in diverse media, including painting, engraving, collage, photography, sculpture, and video. 

Blending storytelling with critical and dissenting narratives, Güreş creates a vibrant universe where humans, animals, plants, and mythological elements are intertwined and envisioned through ever-shifting connections. Infused with a strong capacity for generating new vocabularies that particularly challenge gender norms, her works subvert the binary and polarising structures shaping our understanding of the world through unexpected affinities and, by undermining established patterns of thought, invite viewers to explore alternative modes of coexistence.

The exhibition is also accompanied by an in-depth publication that examines the different layers of Güreş’s production through new texts by Emre Baykal, Silvia Eiblmayr and Lora Sarıaslan. For furter information, please visit here.

Ongoing exhibitions

Under Pressure Above Water
Curator: Nilüfer Şaşmazer
June 12, 2025–January 11, 2026 

Artists: Michaël Borremans, Ángela de la Cruz, Claire Fontaine, Shilpa Gupta, Fatoş İrwen, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Alicja Kwade, Cinthia Marcelle, Tiago Mata Machado, Jean Meeran, MORIS, Ugo Schiavi, Hyun-Sook Song, Nasan Tur, Mariana Vassileva

Structured around two interrelated sections in Arter’s entrance and lower ground floor galleries, the exhibition explores the anxieties provoked by the uncertainties and social injustices of our time, focusing on the questions and propositions that emerge through the expressive possibilities of art.

Franz Erhard Walther: Attempt to be a Sculpture
Curator: Selen Ansen
February 27–October 5, 2025

Drawing from the eponymous work that lays the foundation for Franz Erhard Walther’s ongoing commitment to reformulating sculpture as an open process and action, the exhibition presented in Arter’s 4th and 3rd-floor galleries highlights the conceptual turning points of the artist’s oeuvre through a non-chronological trajectory.

Visit here for further information on Arter’s current and upcoming programme. Press contact: Senem Çelikörslü, senemc@arter.org.tr.