Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T08:28:28.625Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Images delegitimized and discouraged: Explicitly political art and the arbitrariness of the unspeakable

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2015

Banu Karaca
Banu Karaca*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Arts and Social Science, Sabancı University, 34956 Orhanlı, Tuzla-İstanbul, Turkey, bkaraca@sabanciuniv.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

While the increasing interest in contemporary art from Turkey has centered on explicitly political works, discussions on the limitations of the freedom of expression have likewise come under the spotlight, not least with regard to Turkey's EU candidacy. In contrast to the attempts of complete suppression marking the 1980 coup d'état and its aftermath, current censorship mechanisms aim to delegitimize and discourage artistic expressions (and their circulation) that can be construed as threatening the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Turkish state, and to turn their producers into targets. This article investigates selected images produced in the contemporary art world between 2005 and 2008, which were taken to transcend the limits of what constitutes tolerable depictions of Turkey's socio-political realities. It examines current modalities of censorship in the visual arts and the different actors involved in silencing efforts. The cases show that within these fields of delimitation there are considerable contingencies: The domain of the unspeakable remains unclearly mapped. I argue that it is because, not despite, this arbitrariness that delegitimizing interventions are successful, in that they (a) create incentives for self-censorship, and (b) produce defenses of artistic freedom that, by highlighting the autonomy of art, to some extent consolidate a conceptual separation of art from politics.

Keywords

Censorshipvisual artdelegitimizationnational sovereigntydepoliticization
Type
Research Article
Information
New Perspectives on Turkey , Volume 45: Special Issue on Turkishness and Its Discontents , Fall 2011 , pp. 155 - 183
Copyright
Copyright © New Perspectives on Turkey 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahiska, Meltem. “Occidentalism: The Historical Fantasy of the Modern.” South Atlantic Quarterly 102, no. 2-3 (2003): 351–379CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“Ahmet öğüt'ün İşi Gösterimden Kaldırıldı.” Sabah, 2006, http://arsiv.sabah.com.tr/2006/09/29/cm/gnc106-20060915-103.html.Google Scholar
Aksoy, Asu. “Zihinsel Değişim? AKP İktidarı ve Kültür Politikası.” In Türkiye'de Kültür Politikalarına Giriş, edited by Ayça ince, H. and Ada, Serhan, 179–198. İstanbul: İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2009.Google Scholar
Algan, Bülent. “The Brand New Version of Article 301 of Turkish Penal Code and the Future of Freedom of Expression Cases in Turkey.” German Law Journal 9, no. 12 (2008): 2237–2252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Altunok, Özlem. “Bienalde Meydan Savaşı.” Birgün, October 2, 2005.Google Scholar
Antmen, Ahu. “Golsüz Bir Serbest Vuruş.” Radikal Online, September 21, 2005, www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haberno=164661.Google Scholar
Antmen, Ahu. “Halil Altındere Fenomeni.” Radikal Online, 2007, www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haberno=236625.Google Scholar
Barnett, David. “The Simulation of a Reception. Or: Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Der Milli, die Stadt und Tod in Germany, Holland, and Israel.” Contemporary Theatre Review 14, no. 2 (2004): 29’40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“Birilerinin Sanat Korkusu.” Radikal Online, November 7, 2007, http://www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haberno=238040.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Boyacıoğlu, Ahmet. “Yurtdışına Çıkarılmaması Koşuluyla Gösterimine İzin Verilmiştir.” In Türk Sinemasında Sansür. Ankara: Kitle Yayıncılık, 2000.Google Scholar
Brown, Wendy. “Freedom’s Silences.” In Censorship and Silencing: Practices of Cultural Regulation, edited by Post, Robert C., 313–327. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1998.Google Scholar
Brown, Wendy. Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burt, Richard. The Administration of Aesthetics: Censorship, Political Criticism, and the Public Sphere. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. “Ruled Out: Vocabularies of the Censor.” In Censorship and Silencing: Practices of Cultural Regulation, edited by Post, Robert C., 247–259. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1998.Google Scholar
Coetzee, John M.Giving Offense: Essays on Censorship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Devereaux, Mary. “Protected Space. Politics, Censorship, and the Arts.” In Ethics and the Arts: An Anthology, edited by Fenner, David E.W., 41–58. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1995.Google Scholar
Ergener, Balca. “On the Exhibition ‘Incidents of September 6-7 on their Fiftieth Anniversary’ and the Attack on the Exhibition.” Red Thread (2009), http://www.red-thread.org/en/article.asp?a=25.Google Scholar
Ergün, Demet Bilge. “Katalog Toplatıldı: Bienale ‘301’ Gölgesi.” Radikal Online, October 27, 2005, http://www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haberno=168190.Google Scholar
Evren, Süreyyya. Halil Altındere: Kayıplar Ülkesiyle Dans/Dance with the Land of the Lost. İstanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2008.Google Scholar
Fenner, David E.W., ed. Ethics and the Arts: An Anthology. New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1995Google Scholar
Gençay, Gökhan. “Bienalde Top Kimde, Kale Nerede?” Birgün Online, 2005, http://www.birgun.net/sunday_index.php?news_code=1128239907&year=2005&month=10&day=02.Google Scholar
Heins, Majorie. Not in Front of the Children: “Indecency,” Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth. New York: Hill and Wang, 2001.Google Scholar
Herwig, Holger H. “Patriotic Self-censorship in Germany after the Great War.” International Security 12, no. 2 (1987): 5–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Human Rights Watch. “Turkey: Human Rights Developments.” 2003, http://www.hrw.org/legacy/wr2k3/europe13.html.Google Scholar
Human Rights Watch. “Violations of Free Expression in Turkey.” 1999, http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1999/turkey/.Google Scholar
Karaca, Banu. “Claiming Modernity through Aesthetics: A Comparative Look at Germany and Turkey.” Unpublished Ph.D. dissertetion, CUNY, 2009.Google Scholar
Karaca, Banu. “The Politics of Urban Arts Events: A Comparison of İstanbul and Berlin.” In Orienting İstanbul: Cultural Capital of Europe?, edited by Göktürk, Deniz, Soysal, Levent and Türeli, ipek, 234–250. New York: Routledge, 2010.Google Scholar
Kortun, Vasıf, and Erden, Kosova. Szene Túrkei: Abseits, aber Tor! Köln: Walther König, 2004.Google Scholar
Kosova, Erden. “Eleştirel Ihanet-Burak Délier ile Söyleşi.” everestmylord (2007), http://everestmylord.blogspot.com/2007/10/eletirel-ihanet-burak-delier-ile-sylei.html.Google Scholar
Kouvali, Sylvia. “Yama: Yeni Bir Sanat Mekanı.” art-ist 3, no. 5 (2006): 60–70.Google Scholar
Levinson, Sanford. “The Tutelary State: ‘Censorship,’ ‘Silencing,’ and the ‘Practices of Cultural Regulation’.” In Censorship and Silencing: Practices of Cultural Regulation, edited by Post, Robert C., 195–219. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1998.Google Scholar
Madra, Beral. “The Hot Spot of Global Art.” Third Text 22, no. 1 (2008): 105–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ohmer, Anja. “Literatür vor Gericht. Zensur in Deutschland.” Eurozine (2004), http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2004-03-22-ohmer-de.html.Google Scholar
Önderoğlu, Erol. “Kültür Bakanlığı ‘Gitmek’i Festival Programından Çıkarttı.’ Bianet, 2008, http://bianet.org/biamag/bianet/110616-kultur-bakanligi-gitmeki-festival-programindan-cikartti.Google Scholar
Özgür, Ferhat. “Free Kick: Seni Kıskandığım için Üzgünüm.” art-ist 2, no. 4 (2005): 94–97.Google Scholar
Özmen, Şener. “Serbest Vuruş‘ta ‘Star Sanatçı’ Yok! Peki Şimdi Ne Olacak?” Birgün Online, October 2, 2005, http://www.birgun.net/sunday_index.php?news_code=1128239551&year=2005&month=10&day=02.Google Scholar
Patterson, Annabel. Censorship and Interpretation her Censorship and Interpretation: The Conditions of Writing and Reading in Early Modern England. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984.Google Scholar
Post, Robert C, ed. Censorship and Silencing: Practices of Cultural Regulation. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sağlar, Fikri. Ulusaldan Evrensele Çağdaş Kültür. Ankara: T.C. Kültür Bakanlığı Yayınları, 1992.Google Scholar
Saymaz, İsmail. “Yağmurdan Kaçarken.” Radikal Online, 2007, http://www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haberno=238788.Google Scholar
Serin, Ayten. “Allah Korkusu Sergisi Açılmadan Korkuttu.” Hürriyet Online, 2007, http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/7639i92.asp?m=1.Google Scholar
‘“Son Cellat’, a Sansür!”. Milliyet, November 7, 2008, http://www.milliyet.com.tr/Yasam/HaberDetay.aspx?aType=HaberDetay&Kategori=yasam&KategoriID=&ArticleID=1013322&Date=08.11.2008&b=Son%20Cellata%20sansur.Google Scholar
Sönmez, Ayşegül, “İstanbul Calling.” Miliyet Sanat, no. 559 (2005): 7–10.Google Scholar
Sönmez, Ayşegül “Masa ve Ekrandan Sanat Gösterimi.” Sabah Online, 29 September, 2006, http://arsiv.sabah.com.tr/2006/09/29/cm/aja101-20060908-103.html.Google Scholar
Şahin, Özden. “Censorship on Visual Arts and Its Political Implications in Contemporary Turkey: Four Case Studies from 2002-2009.” Unpublished M.A. Thesis, Sabancı University, 2009Google Scholar
Tüzünoğlu, Azra. “Free Kick ve Sonrası.” art-ist 2, no. 4 (2005): 101–105.Google Scholar
Whitman, Lois, and Froncek, Thomas . Paying the Price: Freedom of Expression in Turkey. New York: Helsinki Watch - International Freedom to Publish Committee of the Association of American Publishers, 1989.Google Scholar
Yardımcı, Sibel. Küreselleşen İstanbul'da Bienal, İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2005.Google Scholar
Yıldız, Adnan. “12 Eylül'ün Karşısına!” Radikal Online, 12 September, 2006, http://www.radikal.com.tr/ek_haber.php?ek=r2&haberno=6257.Google Scholar