September 2025
Group Shows
Folia
Curated by Selen Ansen & Eda Berkmen
Abdulmecid Efendi Mansion, Istanbul
21/09/2025 - 01/03/2026
Curated by Selen Ansen and Eda Berkmen, the exhibition Folia organised under the auspices of Koç Holding will welcome visitors at the Bağlarbaşı Abdülmecid Efendi Mansion between 21 September 2025 - 1 March 2026. Interpreting natural processes through a wide range of media and materials, the exhibition brings to life an imaginary garden to rethink the interactions between plants, animals and human beings.
Drawing from the idea of the “enchanted garden” envisioned by Ömer M. Koç, Chair of the Board of Directors of Koç Holding, the exhibition Folia co-curated by Selen Ansen and Eda Berkmen will open to the public at the Bağlarbaşı Abdülmecid Efendi Mansion. This comprehensive exhibition brings together works lent by institutions, artists and collectors from Turkey and abroad along with works especially produced for the occasion with the support of Koç Holding. Folia will welcome visitors from 21 September 2025 to 1 March 2026 every day except Mondays between 11:00 and 19:00.
The exhibition Folia takes its cue from the dual meaning of the Latin word “folia” referring to tree leaves and by extension, to botany and nature on the one hand, and to folly and excess on the other. This enchanted world that connects with the architecture and the historical background of the Abdülmecid Efendi Mansion will take visitors on a journey where fantasy and reality, earth and sky, the minuscule and colossal, the eerie and the familiar intersect and mingle. In the multilayered garden embodied by Folia, man-made forms and creatures evolve, blossom, perish, regenerate, proliferate, merge and metamorphose. The works on display interpret organic processes through various media and materials, encouraging visitors to rethink the mutual interactions between flora, fauna and human beings.
The works embodying Folia draw on the symbolic and cultural meanings attributed to gardens throughout history. Shedding light on the seasonal processes of gardening and the various gestures and activities it encompasses, they also explore the concepts of magic, ecstasy and utopia. The exhibition’s trajectory, which connects the indoor and outdoor spaces of the historic mansion, seeks to provide a pluri-sensorial experience that bridges the vitality and abundance of nature with human imagination. Featuring nearly a hundred artists and over three hundred works, Folia brings together artworks from various geographical regions, ranging from Japan to South Africa, and from different periods since the 19th century, with artifacts pertaining to popular culture, botanical science and craftsmanship.
September 2025
Group Shows
As Thin As A Promise
Curated by Galeri Nev
Merdiven Art Space, Istanbul
17/09/2025 - 18/10/2025
As one of the parallel events of the 18th Istanbul Biennial, “As Thin as a Promise” is being held by Galeri Nev at Merdiven Art Space. Engaging with the themes of self-preservation and the possibilities of the future, the exhibition connects with the “Three-Legged Cat” Biennial through its exploration of the relationship between grace and balance, time and breath, solidarity and resilience. Presenting the fragile object as a metaphor for the fragile society, “As Thin as a Promise” opens on September 17 and runs until October 18.
The exhibition brings together twenty-one artists from different generations who work with ceramics not only as a medium to create ‘fragile objects’ but rather as a material for their sculptures, canvases, and installations; not only taking the clay at its face value but rather investigating its possibilities by blending it with paper, wood, and glass. Born between the early 1930s and the late 1990s, all these artists will be spending the day at the gallery during the opening day, to be closely acquainted with visitors but also with each other and their mutual art practices.
The fact that invited artists are women, obviously recalls their historically ‘fragile’ position of in the history of art. However, the exhibition also aims to highlight the often-feminine perception and thus the secondary status of ceramics itself as a material, and of craft more broadly. In other words, by revealing the cracked and reassembled, scratched, painted, and altered surfaces beneath the glazed finish—sometimes associated with its “secret formula” that borders a certain orientalism— Galeri Nev presents the works of these women ceramicists as proposals for ‘possibilities of self-preservation’.
This also finds its reflection in the tactile sensibility that unites the works in “As Thin as a Promise”. Pieces reminds us that warmth and softness can sometimes be more fragile than what is cold and hard; that something light can become suddenly heavy when embraced; that the animal can become more human than the human; that the furry can also be clawed, the dead, alive; that the hand can stand in for the eye. Within the intimate space of Merdiven Art Space, the exhibition invites the viewer to maintain their balance with care—and, at times, to hold their breath.
Ahu Akgün / Alix Marie / Beril Nur Denli / Ceylan Öztrük / Candeğer Furtun / Eda Gecikmez/ Füreya Koral / Gamze Boz / Gökçe İrten / Güngör Güner / Kyriaki Mavrogeorgi / Mehtap Baydu / Melike Abasıyanık Kurtiç / Necla Rüzgar / Nermin Kura / Phoebe Cummings / Pınar Baklan / Serpil Mavi Üstün / Tümay Erman / Yaren Yıldız / Yasemin Özcan / Yıldız Moran
MERDİVEN ART SPACE Murat Han, Meclis-i Mebusan Caddesi, No: 31/A, Fındıklı i S T A N B U L
GALERİ NEV Kırlangıç Sokak, No:24, Gaziosmanpaşa A N K A R A
April 2025
Solo Shows
ANA I ADA
A collaboration with Ka | Supported by Institut Français de Turquie
Ana at Ka, Ankara
30 April – 28 June 2025
Opening: Tuesday 29 April 2025, 7 pm
Ka | Görsel Kültür ve Sanatsal Düşünce İçin Mekân
Çankaya Mahallesi, Cinnah Caddesi 1/B, Ankara, Turkey 06690
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Ada at Çatı, Izmir
7 May – 30 June 2025
Opening: Tuesday 6 May 2025, 7 pm
Çatı Sanat Alani
Umurbey Mahallesi, 1527 Sokak, No:8, Izmir, Turkey
Invited by Ka and with the support of the Institut Français de Turquie, Alix Marie presents Ana / Ada, marking her first major presentation in Turkey. Taking place in Ankara and Izmir in Spring 2025, Ana will be exhibited at Ka, an independent space for visual culture, while Ada will be presented at Çatı Açık Sanat Alanı.
Alix Marie’s practice is rooted in material and historical research, responding to the cultural and architectural contexts of the sites she works with. Drawing from mythology and enduring narratives, she explores metamorphosis and hybridity, working primarily through installations with photography and sculpture to capture traces and imprints—the “index” that preserves the immediacy of objects or bodies. In Ana and Ada, she engages with the iconography of Anatolian Kilims, where motifs passed down through generations—primarily among women—encode themes of fertility, fecundity, and protection which she chose as the overarching subjects of the shows. Using ceramics and photography on fabric, she integrates the symmetrical structures of Kilim patterns into the exhibition’s concept, reflected in the use of palindromic titles and recurring objects across both presentations. These two exhibitions create a dialogue between materials, myths and symbols.
With Ana, opening on 29 April, Alix Marie explores the symbolic and protective properties of salt and clay. Across cultures and throughout history, salt has played a crucial role in religious rituals, binding agreements, and protective charms. Its universal presence in these practices suggests a deep-seated human instinct.
As you enter the space is a structure composed of approximately three hundred blocks of salt from Konya in Anatolia, near Ankara, shaped in reference to the “koçboynuzu” (ram’s horn) motif —a symbol of strength and fertility. Positioned on top of the salt blocks are nine ceramic pieces, each an imprint of body parts such as hands, arms, and eyes, arranged in mirrored pairs to reinforce the exhibition’s recurrent use of doubling.
At the centre of the salt structure lies The Broken heart of Shahmeran (2025), a life-sized ceramic bust of a woman, her hands tearing open her flesh to reveal dried pomegranate flowers, evoking both blood and fertility. In the second, more intimate room at the back of the gallery, Alix Marie presents Bust (2025), an enigmatic sculpture that invites viewers to look inside, confronting them with their own reflection.
Throughout Ana, Alix Marie’s ceramic works recall ex-votos—objects historically offered as tokens of protection or devotion—imbuing the space with a sense of ritual and sacred significance.
In Ada, Alix Marie engages with Izmir’s deep-rooted history of textile production, once the city’s most significant export. She presents a large-scale mural crafted from fabric, developed through a new technique that fuses red velvet with photographic prints. Between collage, fresco, and tableau vivant Alix Marie constructs a soft architectural environment that envelops the viewer. Red velvet, evocative of blood, childbirth, miscarriage, and the theatrical, becomes both material and metaphor. Each scene within the installation reflects themes of fecundity, protection, and self-generation, weaving together intimate and mythological narratives infused by conversations with close friends about their first pregnancies.
One section of the collage incorporates the “Eli Belinde” (hands on hips) motif—a recurring Kilim pattern symbolising a pregnant woman with her hands supporting her lower back. Across generations and village traditions, this image has served as a powerful representation of fecundity, aligning with the three overarching themes of the exhibition; fertility, fecundity, and protection. The motif’s prevalence in Anatolian culture traces back to the Mother Goddess, the central deity of the Çatalhöyük site, where numerous clay figurines and paintings depicting the goddess were discovered, reinforcing the enduring significance of these symbols.
Ana in Ankara and Ada in Izmir act as mirrors of one another, echoing the structural reflection found in Kilim motifs. Across both locations, Alix Marie explores the symbolic power of salt, clay, and fabric, intertwining personal and collective histories. Ana /Ada invites audiences to engage with the artist’s exploration of mythology and material culture. Through her distinctive approach, Alix Marie challenges perceptions of History, the body, and ritual in contemporary art.
April 2025
Groupshow
Dis/Oriented Body
Curated by Melis Golar
22.04 - 24.05 2025
Martch Art Project, Istanbul
Asmalı Mescit, Sofyalı Sk. No:22, Kat:1 D:1, 34430 Beyoğlu/İstanbul
Opening 22.04 / 18:00
With: Alix Marie, Dilan Bozer, Dilşad Aladağ, Fırat İtmeç, Mustafa Boğa, Serra Bilgincan, Yekateryna Grygorenko, Zeynep Beler
Departing from the idea that belonging is not solely a mental construct but also a bodily experience,the exhibition explores how the body is shaped within different contexts, what it transforms into,and the networks of relations in which it is situated. At its core, the exhibition poses the question:How does the feeling of belonging affect the body?
In this framework, the body is situated not as a passive vessel, but as a subject shaped by — and simultaneously shaping — societal norms, memory, environment, and cultural codes. Here, the body is not seen as an isolated entity, but as a notion that gains meaning within a web of relations. Through diverse practices, the eight participating artists establish a temporary yet impactful sense of belonging within Martch Art’s gallery space. Their works go beyond fixed notions of identity and origin, proposing belonging as a state of being, a condition of transition, of exposure, and also of influence.
Through the metaphor of water, the narrative invites us to a temporal homecoming: the initial state of existence in the womb, the vibration of life within a single cell, the evolutionary movement beginning in primordial oceans, or a shared origin formed through cosmic energy. Water appears as a medium of transformation — sometimes in the salty memory of the sea that once carried life onto land, sometimes in the first sip of milk, in amniotic fluid, or within the unknowable depths of a dark ocean. In this exhibition, the body is not merely the bearer of belonging, but also an interface that it redefines. The sense of belonging becomes tangible through connections to objects, identities, relationships, or geographies. This sentiment echoes within lullabies, manifests in the sameness of multiplying bodies, or is represented through identity-laden objects, people and the effort to form bonds across distant lands.
November 2024
PARIS PHOTO
07-10 November 2024
Grand Palais, Paris
Jonny Briggs, Alix Marie & Silvia Rosi
Group Show
Psychic Topographies
Curated by Sini Rinne-Kanto & Andrew Hodgson
Opening 31st May
Profil Paris
With: Laura Gozlan, Hadrien Jacquelet, Alix Marie & Philipp Timischl
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