Istanbul mayor sees culture as ‘locomotive’ in re-election bid

Istanbul’s mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, widely viewed as a future challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is betting that his administration’s culture investments will help him secure re-election in a March vote.

An expansive new show from Tate Modern, staged in a 19th-century military factory restored by İmamoğlu’s cultural heritage department, illustrates the significance the incumbent has placed on such initiatives. The Dynamic Eye: Beyond Op and Kinetic Art (until 19 May), comprised of 95 works from the London museum’s collection, is the largest international art exhibit a Turkish municipality has hosted.

“I opened this test exhibition, and within three days it had the third highest number of visitors [of a Modern art show] in Europe. This is an important indicator of how engaged our population of 16 million are,” İmamoğlu told reporters at the venue, ArtIstanbul Feshane, which opened in June 2023. “I believe Istanbul won’t give up on an administration that...protects, develops and improves its environment and history.”

Tough battle

Yet İmamoğlu faces a tough battle to retain control of Europe’s largest city after the opposition lost last year’s parliamentary and presidential elections. A rare coalition of leftists, nationalists, religious parties and Kurds that came together to defeat the ruling party has shattered. Smaller parties are planning to run their own candidates; they are unlikely to win but could suppress turnout for İmamoğlu.

Turkey’s president hand-picked his party’s candidate for Istanbul mayor. İmamoğlu has also accused Erdoğan of politicising the judiciary, including a ruling in late 2022 that resulted in a political ban for “insulting” electoral officials that he is appealing. It is unclear whether a ruling will come before the March municipal elections.

Since ousting Erdoğan’s party in 2019, İmamoğlu has rehabilitated several of the city’s 35,000 registered heritage sites, restoring the city’s Byzantine-era walls, an Ottoman fortress and a gasworks that now serves as museum. The city plans to convert a shipyard on the Golden Horn into a contemporary art museum early this year.

Safeguarding Istanbul's treasures

Around 1% of the $7bn municipal budget has been earmarked for culture projects, according to a source close to the matter. İmamoğlu has said that his efforts to safeguard Istanbul’s treasures were central to his campaign.

“Protecting cultural heritage produced by this city over thousands of years…is the foremost vision I can offer. I will never give up on this and see it as a locomotive power for me to continue on this path,” he said.

More than 10,000 people visited The Dynamic Eye the first weekend after it opened on 23 January. The sprawling exhibit, curated by Tate Modern’s Valentina Ravaglia, includes work by Alexander Calder, Frank Stella and other pioneers of optical art, which emerged in the mid-20th century.

For Tate Modern, working with a local government that is expanding art and culture sets the ground for future collaborations, says Neil McConnon, the director of international partnerships.

“We were not just impressed but inspired by the vision…being rolled out in a short time across the city. This is a vision that we wanted to support,” McConnon said at the show’s preview on 22 January. “We fully understood that this is an organisation in nascent form, but we wanted to be a part of that right from the get-go, to be immersed in the ideas and the development and, hopefully, the future of the work that's going on.”