19/02/2026
Photographer Murat Germen, a faculty member at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, will be exhibiting with painter Halit Demirel in an exhibition titled "tek" at ARK Kültür in Istanbul between February 10 and March 10, 2026.
"tek" aims to bring together the creative processes of two contemporary artists who continue their production with independent methods and approaches on a common ground. The exhibition opens an experimental meeting space by reassembling the artists' works through double, triple, and multiple "exposures".
In the exhibition, which spans three floors of ARK Kültür, Demirel's black-and-white abstract compositions and Germen's photographic framing developed on topography are placed side by side. The exhibition presents the possible intersections in the aesthetic and subconscious universes of the two artists for the viewer's evaluation.
Journalist Evrim Altuğ, a member of AICA Türkiye, also contributes a text to the exhibition. Altuğ asks, "How much can one image truly witness another?" Starting from this question, he states that the installation in the exhibition creates a new ground for encounter by overlapping the visual fields of the two artists.
About the Artists
Halit Demirel graduated from the Painting Department of Marmara University Faculty of Fine Arts in 1999. Focusing on the concept of "the inward search for infinity" in his works, the artist deals with the wide tonal scale of black and white through layered surfaces. Demirel, who continues his production in his studio in Istanbul, has works in private collections in Türkiye as well as in Germany, the USA, Switzerland, Britain, Italy, and Russia. The artist has presented his works to the audience in various exhibitions from the 1997 TÜYAP Young Artists Event "Chaos" edition to the Çanakkale Biennial (2024).
Murat Germen uses photography as a tool for expression and research. He received his Master of Architecture degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied with a Fulbright scholarship, with the American Association of Architects (AIA) Gold Medal. Germen, who teaches photography, art, and new media at Sabancı University's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, has numerous print and online publications in the fields of photography, architecture, planning, new media, and art. His work focuses on issues such as over-urbanization, dispossession, new forms of imperialism, participatory citizenship, urban rights, sustainability of local cultures, human-caused environmental destruction, climate change, and water rights.
The exhibition "tek" can be visited at ARK Kültür until March 10, 2026.
