Vasif Kortun

Vasif Kortun is the director of Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center in Istanbul. Projects in 2009 include exhibitions at The Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide, Australia; and Les Ateliers Internationaux, Frac des Pays de la Loire, France. Kortun is presently editing a monograph on the late artist Hüseyin B. Alptekin. The co-curator of the 9th Istanbul Biennial in 2005 and the 2008 Taipei Biennial, Kortun received the 9th annual Award for Curatorial Excellence given by the Center for Curatorial Studies in 2006, and organized the Turkish Pavilion for the 2007 Venice Biennial.

Platform Garanti

Istanbul, Turkey

Platform acts as a dynamic catalyst for the dissemination, research and practice of contemporary art in the city, and also provides a meeting point for exchange between contemporary artists, curators and critics. In addition, the center has become a cultural portal for the region; through our residency programme and other initiatives we work with countries where the structure for a contemporary art scene is forming, but where there are few arts institutions or funding structures to provide further support at this time.

Platform contains an archive of work by more than 140 artists from Turkey, the most comprehensive library of art publications in the city, the Istanbul Residency Program, and an exhibition space committed to exhibiting contemporary art from Turkey and abroad.

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