Jeff Gibbs makes a case for BM Suma Gallery.

    We've all read the hype.  Istanbul was the jewel of the Sultan's empire, a mélange of cultures bridging two continents.  It's going to be the European Cultural Capital of 2010.  Okay, I get it.  Istanbul is the queen of cities when it comes to culture, but if that's true, then where are all her pioneering artists?  A few exhibition spaces throughout the city cater to the relatively unknown and innovative, and one of the most interesting is BM Suma Gallery in Karaköy.
    BM Suma is located in the center of Istanbul's electronics district.  It's surrounded by shops selling screws, saw blades, cords, wires--in short, everything including the proverbial kitchen sink.  It's a bit tricky to find, but the easiest way to get there is walk down Bank Street away from Karaköy Iskelesi and turn left just after Güvenli Sigorta.  You'll have to ring the bell to get in, first at the front door and then again at the door of the gallery itself. 
    The curator claims the building was once an electronics parts store, but the chipped murals on some of the ceilings indicate it was once a home.  All of the walls have been whitewashed; the wood floor left unfinished.  There are no frills, no decorations, nothing but the works themselves.  The result is an eerily empty place where the art feels much more confrontational than your average gallery.  At times, it's like wandering through a carnival spook house.  Small closet spaces hold slide projectors that flash images on the wall.  When I came in March, there was a video of a girl playing hopscotch.  Alone with her image in that tiny, empty room, I felt as if I were side by side with a ghost.
    Currently, Suma is hosting an exhibition of artists from Berlin.  For 20 years, Berliners have been coming to Istanbul on six-month scholarships to create works based on their reactions to the city.  The gallery is celebrating the anniversary of the Berlin Scholarship by showing 23 of the best artists exhibited since 1998, half in April and the other half in May. 
    I tend to be cautious when approaching galleries like Suma.  Too often, they host rather unimpressive oddities masquerading as modern art.  In March, one room featured a video of a woman brushing her teeth; only her mouth was closed.  Yes, it was weird, but so what?  There's always a sign explaining that we're being taught to see some ordinary object--potatoes, chairs, mothers--"in a new way" or to "question our assumptions"--catch-all phrases that mean "we had no idea what else to say."
    The Berlin Scholarship, however, has turned out some real gems.  In the first room is a photograph by Natascha Haghihan.  It juxtaposes a picture of a Muslim woman in full burkha from what looks like a 1940s post card with the image of a Western woman from the same period in the back of a car blocking her face from the camera flash.  An instant visual connection is made between two women from cultures we are told are conflicting--both trying to hide their faces from an aggressive voyeur--the viewer of the photo, of course, being implicated.   Many of the pieces are installations.  Thomas Busch's "Eskici" is a tinker's cart filled with found items including a picture of transsexual star Blent Ersoy, a tacky mosque shaped clock, and a smashed picture of Atatürk.  Here are the ineffable tensions of modern Turkey captured in a single image--the conservative symbols of Atatürk and mosque, those stalwarts of nationalist Turkey, next to the photo of a man flaunting the ideals of both, yet remaining an integral part of the country, all piled into the humble cart of one of the cities most enduring symbols of poverty. 
    The exhibit that impressed me most was a series of photographs by Roland Stratmann called Made In Istanbul--and it works best as a series.  Each picture shows a street scene in Istanbul, where ordinary objects have been piled into the same repeating shape.  One photo is of blue cement bags heaped against a yellow restaurant wall.  Another is a stack of shampoo bottles in the trunk of a salesman car.  A third is a coil of hoses and multicolored buckets.  Each one creates the same blob of bright color against a dingy urban background, and, though I hate to say it, it made me look at ordinary objects in a new way.  Walking home back to the wharf through the stacks of electronic parts, I thought of the pictures and saw the mundane tools around transform into shapes, colors, and patterns.  An abstract beauty was revealed beneath the daily grime of a crowded city.  
    The May crop of Berliners promises to be just as thought provoking.  With new exhibitions every month, the Suma is well worth a look at any time of year.