Burhan Kum History’s Disquiet

Burhan Kum’s first exhibition with Öktem Aykut, History’s Disquiet partly depends on Kum’s comic book Gentile Bellini’nin Kontantiniyye Günlüğü (Gentile Bellini’s Journal of Constantinople) published in November 2019 by 1984 Publication House. Another exhibition named after Kum’s comic book and displaying some of the comic’s 128 canvases may be visited at Öktem Aykut’s neighboring cultural institute Kıraathane between December 6 and 28, 2019.

Burhan Kum is known for his works through which he discusses the traditions of painting, displaying, and representation in the East and the West and compares what is shown and what is hidden. While Gentile Bellini’s Journal of Constantinople focuses on the adventures of the Italian painter who painted both Mehmet the Conqueror and the city of Istanbul after being invited to the city by the sultan, the biography of the artist enables Kum to embark on a uniquely rich investigation for his artistic interests. Gentile Bellini’s portrait of Mehmet the Conqueror in 1480 bears great significance on account of being the first oil painting known in Turkey. However, Kum believes that the most important and overlooked aspect of this painting, regarded as a “portrait” since the beginning, is its use of perspective. Kum focuses his research of this painting on the fact that such a painting was made in Istanbul during a time before German Renaissance theoretician Albrecht Dürer introduced the mathematical perspective to Germany and that Bellini placed the horizon on the same level with the sultan’s eye. Other topics of interest for Kum’s comic book and exhibition at Kıraathane include what other works Bellini, during his stay of 16 months in Istanbul, created besides the Sultan’s portrait, currently in London, and what happened to them.

History’s Disquiet is an exhibition that frames the 128 canvases of the comic with other losses that affected the course of history (such as Osman Hamdi’s painting Creation and Salvador Allende’s lost glasses) and reflects on them in relation to societal and artistic problems Kum has been meticulously investigating and discussing for the last 30 years.

Although Kum’s production which pursues the traces of contrasts such as East and West, artist and authority, and progressives and conservatives is framed by a repertoire of caricaturized and popular references, it also presents a layered satire that can only be achieved by pushing the boundaries of expressions of painting. The artist’s questions about the influences of the religious functionaries’ comments that hindered the development of painting and the effect of perspective painting on individual gaze, design, and creativity in society, and curiosity about what kind of history the Ottoman state would have if the sultans after Mehmet the Conqueror continued to have paintings finds original answers in both Gentile Bellini’s Journal of Constantinople and History’s Disquiet. Approaching the unofficial history of the art of painting in Turkey as a researcher, Burhan Kum finds, in the practice of painting, the answers to the questions of how authority instrumentalizes art for its presentation to the public. Though created as a result of a two-years effort, History’s Disquiet and Gentile Bellini’s Journal of Constantinople serve as a dense representation and strong summary of Kum’s 30-years career as an artist when approached with the artist’s previous works.