Istanbul Modern’s exhibition draws from its permanent collection to highlight the historical link to the past that art museums establish as sites of memory, and their role in shaping the future by their commitment to collecting and preserving works of art.
Museums are experienced in the present yet they are also spaces poised at the intersection between past and future. They embody the dynamics of change in art, intellectual expansion, creative contexts, new modes of expression, and the visual and verbal legacies that artists inherit from one another. A museum is both a memory palace fueling creativity and discovery and a rich universe of visual materials harboring potential resources for the future.
With its permanent collection exhibition titled “Past and Future” Istanbul Modern references the transformation of modern and contemporary art produced in Turkey and emphasizes the accumulation from which future fields of creative expression can benefit. Curated with an expansive selection of works from the museum collection, the exhibition explores intertemporal interaction in art while also underlining the rich diversity between past and future.
