Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum

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Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum (SSM),
one of the first private museums in Turkey, is an
original complex nourished by surrounding social
and cultural geography that continually represents
the different historical layers on which it is located.
In this sense, SSM functions as an intercultural
bridge of art that takes Turkey to the world and
the world to Turkey, all the while constituting a
living space and cultural center. SSM projects a
multifaceted approach to museum management
with its collections, international exhibitions,
conservation units, educational programs, concerts,
international congresses and seminars. As a
university museum, the museum sets a modern,
pioneering and innovative standard in Turkey with
its academic structure, emphasis on science, and its
incomparable location in İstanbul.
Achievements
Since its foundation with the mission of
encouraging the study, understanding and
dissemination of the world’s historical, artistic
and cultural heritage throughout Turkey, SSM has
achieved numerous firsts in the representation of
art and culture.
Major historical exhibitions SSM has introduced
to Turkey include “The Art of the Book from East
to West and Memories of the Ottoman World
Masterpieces from the Lisbon Calouste Gulbenkian
Museum, Lisbon” which presented manuscripts
and printed books, textiles, weavings and Iznik tiles;
“Istanbul, Isfahan, Delhi: Three Capitals of Islamic
Art Masterpieces from the Louvre Collection,”
which presented treasures from the Louvre’s
Islamic Art section, and “Genghis Khan and His
Heirs, The Great Mongol Empire,” which featured
artifacts surviving from the largest empire in
recorded history.
Furthermore, SSM has held major retrospective
exhibitions of works by great masters of modern
art, including “Picasso in Istanbul” (2005),
“Salvador Dali: A Surrealist in Istanbul” (2008)
and “Joan Miro. Women, Birds, Stars” (2014).
SSM presented some of the most important and
original reflections of modern art with the “Joseph
Beuys and his Students – the Deutsche Bank
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Collection” exhibition, which presented a wide
selection of the artistic approaches the famous
artist Joseph Beuys influenced as a teacher (2009),
“Sophie Calle – For the Last and First Time”
(2011) and “Anish Kapoor in Istanbul” (2013).
In addition to various exhibitions held in its
own venue, SSM also promotes its permanent
collections internationally by lending works to
exhibitions abroad. Selected pieces from its Arts of
the Book and Calligraphy Collection and Painting
Collection were exhibited as Sakıp Sabancı’s
private collection at the Metropolitan Museum
of Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Art
Museum, Harvard University Arthur M. Sackler
Museum, the Louvre, Berlin Guggenheim Museum
and Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt
between the years of 1998 and 2001, prior to the
founding of the museum.
S.U. Sakıp Sabancı Museum has also become
known with exhibitions consisting entirely of its
own collections in notable international museums.
Some of these foreign exhibitions include
“Evocations, Passages, Atmospheres and Paintings
from the Sakip Sabanci Museum, Istanbul,” at the
Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, followed by “Lines
in Gold: Ottoman Calligraphy from Sakıp Sabancı
Museum, Istanbul,” at the Real Academia de Bellas
Artes de San Fernando, Madrid (2007), and “Five
Hundred Years of Islamic Calligraphy,” at the
National Museum of Bahrain (2014).
In addition to international art projects, S.U.
Sakıp Sabancı Museum was awarded the Turkish
Presidency Culture and Arts Grand
Prize in 2009 as an Institution of
Culture and the Arts.
History
S.U. Sakıp Sabancı Museum is
located in Emirgan, one of Istanbul’s
most storied sections of the
Bosphorus. The villa that comprises
the Museum’s main building was
commissioned in 1927 by Prince
Mehmed Ali Hasan of the Egyptian
Khedive family to Italian architect
Edouard de Nari, who designed
numerous other important structures during his life
in Istanbul. The mansion was used for many years
as a summer residence by various members of the
Khedive family before it was bought from Princess
İffet by Hacı Ömer Sabancı in 1951. The house
then became known as “The Mansion with the
Horse”, in reference to the statue placed in front,
created in 1864 by French sculptor Louis Doumas.
A second horse statue on The Mansion with the
Horse grounds is a cast reproduction of one of
four horses that was taken from the Hippodrome
of Constantinople during the heavy looting of the
4th Crusade in 1204, and placed in front of the
San Marco Church in Venice.
Following the death of Hacı Ömer Sabancı,
The Mansion with the Horse became the private
residence of the Sakıp Sabancı Family, housing
Sakıp Sabancı’s rich calligraphy and painting
collections. In 1998, the mansion was bequeathed
to Sabancı University, along with its collections and
furniture. A modern gallery wing was added to the
original structure and the Museum was opened
to the public in 2002, with the exhibition space
being expanded in 2005 and upgraded to meet
international technical standards.
Product
In 2009, SSM carried out a groundbreaking project
in the city of Mardin, a cradle of civilizations in
southeast Turkey, which was sponsored by the
Sabancı Foundation. The project oversaw the
restoration of the historic building formerly used
as military barracks and its transformation into
the Sakıp Sabancı Mardin City Museum, displaying
artifacts that document and exhibit the city’s
formation and way of life, along with its invaluable
customs, languages and cultures. As such, Sakıp
Sabancı Mardin City Museum and the Dilek
Sabancı Art Gallery opened to visit on October
1, 2009 with the aim of reflecting Mardin with its
cultural richness and depth.Thus far, the museum
has held numerous exhibitions including “Selected
Works from the S.U. Sakıp Sabancı Museum
Collection: Nature, Mankind and the Sea,” “Abidin
Dino in Mardin” and “Lo and Behold. Ara Güler
in Mardin” Children’s workshops and education
programs are held throughout the year with the
sponsorship of Sabancı Foundation, reaching children
in Mardin and its surrounding districts and villages.
SSM Children’s Education Programs, which
began to be held regularly parallel to the
“Picasso in Istanbul” exhibition, continue with
added diversity and content with workshops
and children’s books in conjunction with the
exhibitions held at the museum, focusing on art,
artists, art movements, history and culture. These
specially prepared children’s books have also been
made into audio books and are now available for
streaming and download, free of charge, from the
museum’s website as of 2014.
Furthermore, SSM continues its spring and
autumn Adult Education Programs on subjects
such as art history, modern art, architecture,
mythology and cinema, along with various
symposia, panel discussions and conferences in
conjunction with exhibitions.
In 2013, with the collaboration of Sabancı
University Science Center, SSM launched its
“DigitalSSM” project. DigitalSSM presents the
Arts of the Book and Calligraphy Collection, the
Turkish Painting Collection, Abidin Dino Archive
and Emirgan Archive together with over 77,000
high-resolution visuals on the www.digitalssm.org
website. The year 2013 also oversaw a thorough
botanical research on the expansive gardens
of SSM with the help of the Istanbul University
Department of Forestry, which recorded tree
and plant species, labeling them with information
available to botany enthusiasts. The research
identified 115 different plant varieties including
rarely seen plants, with conferences on nature and
botany being held within the scope of the “SSM
Garden” project.
Recent Developments
S.U. Sakıp Sabancı Museum and Google Cultural
Institute collaborated for the development of the
museum’s inclusion in Google Art Project, which
was launched in 2015. Using digital technology
to offer art enthusiasts the experience of walking
through the museum and viewing the SSM
collections along with the furniture collection of The
Mansion with the Horse, the project effectively keeps
the museum open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Another project in 2014 was “The Portrait of
Sakıp Sabancı”, a video installation commissioned
to artist Kutluğ Ataman by the Sakıp Sabancı family
in 2011, to mark the 10th anniversary of Sabancı’s
passing.
The artwork uses the latest technology in visual
arts comprises of the photographs of thousands
of people who have been supported by, have given
support to, and have been in touch with Sakıp
Sabancı, putting forth Sakıp Sabancı’s vision as a
timeless concept. In 2015, “The Portrait of Sakıp
Sabancı” was invited to be exhibited at the main
section of one of the world’s oldest and most
influential art organizations, the 56th Venice Biennale.
Promotion
S.U. Sakıp Sabancı Museum is home to two
permanent collections, namely The Art of
the Book and Calligraphy Collection and the
Turkish Painting Collection from the Ottoman
Reformation to the Republic.
Presenting a comprehensive look at 500 years
of Ottoman calligraphic art, the SSM Arts of
the Book and Calligraphy Collection consists of
rare hand-written Korans, as well as murakkas,
verses, inscriptions, hilyes, royal decrees, charters
and menşurs, exhibited along with the tools
calligraphers employed. Continuing its tradition of
collecting, the Sakıp Sabancı Museum continually
adds new works to the Art of the Book and
Calligraphy Collection, and displays these works
in the Ottoman Calligraphy Halls located in the
Mansion.
In 2012, the Arts of the Book and Calligraphy
Collection was re-launched with a new design
and a contemporary display approach. This new
permanent presentation of the Arts of the Book
and Calligraphy Collection allows visitors to
view animations linked to iPad applications with
“augmented reality” technology and also take a
detailed look at valuable and rare manuscripts,
page by page.
The Painting Collection at the Sakıp Sabancı
Museum is much more than a personal collection
amassed by Sakıp Sabancı with an interest in a
particular period of Turkish painting; it is a cultural
repertoire comprising momentous clues as to the
birth and development of the art of painting in
the region, including works produced between
1850 and 1950. In this way, the collection is a
continuation of the historical process delineated
by Sakıp Sabancı Museum Arts of the Book
and Calligraphy Collection, showcasing the
transformation of visual image production as well
as the concepts of art and artist, reflecting the
modernization period from the Ottoman Empire
to the Turkish Republic.
The history of Turkish painting is presented in
tandem with selected iconic art works from the
collection along with the furniture and decorative
objects in family rooms. The rooms on the ground
floor of the “The Mansion with the Horse” display
furniture influenced by baroque, rococo, neogothic, neo-classic and empire styles and 19th
century decorations used by the Sabancı Family
when the mansion served as their residence.
The Archeological and Stone Works Collection
consists of Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman pieces
and is exhibited in the Museum’s garden.
A paper conservation laboratory has been in
place and functioning since the opening of the
Sakıp Sabancı Museum. The laboratory, which was
first established to oversee the conservation and
restoration of all manuscripts which constitute a
large part of the Arts of the Book and Calligraphy
Collection, has been developed further to include
a painting conservation section. Conservation
specialists oversee children’s education workshops
and workshop activities in addition to their work in
conservation. In past years, Sakıp Sabancı Museum
has hosted such events as the IIC congress titled
“Conservation and the Eastern Mediterranean”,
“Fakes, Misattributions and Puzzles: Investigating
paintings by scientific methods” by Dr. Ashok
Roy the Director of Collections at the National
Gallery, and “The Conservation of Modern and
Contemporary Art: Issues, Challenges, and Current
Research” presented by Dr. Tom Learner, Head of
Science at The Getty Conservation Institute.
Having hosted a great number of exhibitions
since its opening in 2002, SSM positions its
temporary exhibitions to reflect the nature and
comprehensiveness of its Arts of the Book and
Calligraphy and Turkish Painting Collection. Every
Wednesday, the Museum is open until 8:00, with
admission being free of charge to all visitors. In
addition, admission is always free for children up to
the age of 14 along with one adult, handicapped
visitors and one companion, and people above the
age of 60. The museum is closed on Mondays.
www.sakipsabancimuzesi.org
THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT
Sabancı University
Sakıp Sabancı Museum
› The horse statue that greets museum
visitors at the SSM garden is a cast reproduction of one of the four bronze
horses that were taken from Hippodrome
in Sultanahmet during the 4th crusade between 1202 and 1204.
›The Museé d’Orsay in Paris is home to a larger version of the statue of David and Goliath by Antonin Mercié on display in the family rooms of The Mansion with the Horse.
›The endowment deed bearing the seal of Sultan Mehmed I from the SSM Arts of the Book and Calligraphy Collection is of special importance as a sealed document surviving
from the early days of Ottoman history. Dating to two years before the ascent of Sultan Mehmed I, also known as Çelebi
Mehmed, to the throne, the endowment deed is one of the very few such documents that has survived to the present day.
›The SSM Arts of the Book and Calligraphy
Collection also includes a notable contemporary interpretation of traditional
calligraphy, a video titled “Water” from
the “Mesapotamian Dramaturgies” series
by artist and director Kutluğ Ataman. Added
to the collection in 2012 on the Museum’s
10th anniversary, the work is designed based on photographs taken at different hours of the Bosphorus and the waterway that divides Istanbul into its European and Asian sides.
›Halil Paşa’s painting titled “Madam X,” yet another invaluable piece of the SSM Painting
Collection, was displayed in 1889 at the
Paris Fair and was awarded the Bronze Medal. Today, the painting is exhibited at the SSM galleries along with its award certificate.
›SSM Painting Collection also includes Osman Hamdi Bey’s only known still life painting, “Flowers in a White Vase.” dating to 1876, it depicts peonies in a Chinese vase with a peacock motif.
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