Semiha Berksoy: Aria of All Colors

“Aria of All Colors,” a major exhibition devoted to Semiha Berksoy (1910–2004), celebrates a pioneering artist whose versatility and resolve enabled her to break new ground in both Türkiye and Europe. The exhibition brings together her expansive body of work – spanning the performing arts, visual arts, cinema, and literature – and offers a comprehensive look at the creative universe she built over the course of her extraordinary career. With more than 200 works on view, the exhibition makes visible the many layers of Berksoy’s world while highlighting the singular connections she forged between opera, theater, painting, and writing.

From her early drawings to her opera-themed paintings inspired by the stage, from her self-portraits and portraits to her large-scale sheet paintings, the exhibition presents Berksoy’s personal mythology and her profound relationship with performance through a thematic structure. The operas she starred in, the plays she performed, her published short story, and her role in Istanbul Streets, Türkiye’s first sound film, collectively reveal the full scope of her contributions to the world of art. Drawing on the dynamism of Berksoy’s life, these works both broaden our understanding of the universality of art and illuminate the creative force of the human spirit.

The first iteration of this retrospective was presented at Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart in Berlin from December 6, 2024 to May 11, 2025. As part of the ongoing collaboration between the two institutions, “Semiha Berksoy: Aria of All Colors” will be shown at Istanbul Modern in a new version that focuses on the artist’s creative processes and life, enriched with sound recordings, moving images, ephemera, and photographs.

In the exhibition catalogue for “Semiha Berksoy: Aria of All Colors,” texts by scholar, writer, and theater critic Dikmen Gürün; scholar Ayşe Güngör; Sam Bardaouil, Director of Hamburger Bahnhof, curator and writer; and artist Elif Uras are featured. The catalogue also includes an interview conducted by theatre and film artist Zeliha Berksoy with the exhibition’s assistant curator Yazın Öztürk, as well as texts by the exhibition’s curators Deniz Pehlivaner and Öykü Özsoy Sağnak.

The exhibition has been conceived by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, directors of Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, which is adapted for Istanbul Modern by the museum’s chief curator Öykü Özsoy Sağnak, curator Deniz Pehlivaner, and assistant curator Yazın Öztürk.

Image:
La Tosca Performance, 1975 (detail)
Oil on hardboard
250 x 124 cm
Courtesy of the Estate Semiha Berksoy and Galerist