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Curated by Başak Doğa Temür, the exhibition brings together existing works and new productions spanning sculpture, installation, painting and mixed-media works on paper and fabric. A Kiss on the Eyes takes its cue from the Turkish phrase Gözlerinizden öperim, a closing remark commonly used at the end of a letter. It expresses closeness without claiming it, warmth without intrusion. In this exhibition, the gesture is directed toward the viewer. The gaze is not treated as a tool of possession or control, but as a way of approaching, sensing, and acknowledging presence. Detailed information about the exhibition can be found here.
The Türkiye Pavilion exhibition is coordinated by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) with the contribution of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Türkiye, the support of co-sponsor Trendyol Art, airline partner Turkish Airlines and production support of SAHA Association. The Vehbi Koç Foundation is also providing publishing support for the preparation of the exhibition catalogue.
A Kiss on the Eyes, echoing the Biennale’s theme In Minor Keys, embraces subtlety as a form of political strength, proposing ways of being together guided by care and opening up new perspectives through modest gestures and carefully crafted forms.
In her catalogue text, curator Başak Doğa Temür introduces the exhibition with the following words:
“The exhibition unfolds through spatial relationships rather than a linear narrative. Works remain close to the ground, lean, hang, or hover. Instead of guiding the viewer from one work to the next, the exhibition invites them to slow down and become aware of their own bodily position in relation to the space and to others. Moving through the exhibition becomes a negotiation between distance and proximity, vulnerability and resistance.
Such an approach characterises Nilbar Güreş’s work across multiple media, drawing on lived experience to address questions of gender, migration, and belonging. Her practice is shaped by situations marked by displacement, racism, xenophobia, and discrimination based on religion and belief, not as distant subjects but as conditions that structure everyday life. She often focuses on moments where social norms and power relations become visible through bodies, relationships, and acts of looking.
Materials such as textiles, garments, domestic objects, and organic forms play a central role in her work. These materials carry personal and collective histories and are altered through gestures of care, humour, and resistance. Intimacy and political tension exist side by side, allowing vulnerability to appear without connotations of passivity.”
Publication
A bilingual (Turkish and English) publication will accompany the exhibition, co-published by İKSV and Mousse Publishing, with the support of the Vehbi Koç Foundation. Alongside texts that closely engage with the artist’s practice and the exhibition, the book also includes a selection of poems, which address the concepts of subtlety and care at the heart of the exhibition’s conceptual framework across different contexts. Offering layered readings of Nilbar Güreş’s imagery, the texts in the book situate A Kiss on the Eyes within the continuity of the artist’s practice. The poems in the selection, in turn, foreground concepts such as displacement, memory, fragility, discrimination, plurality, and relationality, in line with the themes of gender, migration, and belonging, which are central to the artist’s practice.
In addition to being available to biennial visitors at La Biennale bookshops, the publication can also be found at art-focused bookshops worldwide, particularly in Europe. Online sales will be available via here.
The graphic design of the project and the book is undertaken by İpek Erdöl, with editorial work by Hazal Yonca Birincioğlu.
Nilbar Güreş
Nilbar Güreş (b. 1977, Istanbul) received her B.A. in Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Marmara University and completed her M.A. in Painting and Graphics at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, followed by further studies in Art and Textile Pedagogy at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna.
Honoured with the Outstanding Artist Award for Photography and a Research Grant by the Austrian Ministry of Arts and Culture in 2023, Güreş has also been the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the Hilde Goldschmidt Prize (2013), the Otto Mauer Award (2014), the BC21 Art Award by Belvedere Contemporary (2015), the De’Longhi Art Projects Artist Award at the London Art Fair (2018), and the Prix Maud Mottier (2021). In 2012, supported by the Austrian Ministry of Arts and Culture, she participated in the International Studio & Curatorial Programme in New York as an artist-in-residence.
Her multidisciplinary practice encompasses photography, video, film, painting, performance, sculpture, installation, and mixed-media collages on fabric. Beginning from the personal and biographical, her works expand to address broader issues, with particular sensitivity to themes of social injustice, gender roles, and cultural identity codes. Through research, documentation, and the use of witty figurations, she poetically subverts conventions.
Nilbar Güreş currently lives and works in Naples, Vienna, and Istanbul.
Nilbar Güreş’s solo exhibitions include: Velvet Stare, Arter, Istanbul, Türkiye (2025); Space Uncurated #1, MLZ Art Dep, Trieste, Italy (2024); JUNCTIONS, Kunstforum Montafon, Schruns, Austria (2024); ATEM, Vienna, Austria (2021); Sour as a Lemon, Pasquart Kunsthaus, Biel, Switzerland (2021); Breasts by Rose, Vortic Art, London, United Kingdom (2021); Tell Me, Kunstverein Reutlingen, Reutlingen, Germany (2019); Lovers, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, Germany (2019); Erzähl’ mir., Kunstverein Reutlingen, Germany (2019); Overhead, Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz, Austria (2018); JesuitenFoyer, Vienna, Austria (2014); FO.KU.S – Foto Kunst Stadtforum, Innsbruck, Austria (2014); Pink Is The New Black, Osmos, New York, United States (2013); Self-Defloration, Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, Germany (2011); Nilbar Güreş, Undressing, MuseumsQuartier, Vienna, Austria (2011); Nilbar Güreş: Window Commission 2010, INIVA Institute of International Visual Art, Rivington Place, London, United Kingdom (2010), and Unknown Sports, Indoor Exercises, Salzburger Kunstverein, Austria (2009).
Her group exhibitions include: Empowerment, Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore (IN); Colombo (LK) (2025); Forms of the Shadow, Secession, Vienna, Austria (2024); The Cynics Republic, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2024); Delinking and Relinking, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands (2023); Biennale Bregaglia, Switzerland (2022); Mixed Up With Others Before We Even Begin, Museum of Modern Art Vienna - Mumok, Austria (2022); Afterglow, Yokohama Triennale, Japan (2020); Drawing Biennial 2019, Drawing Room, London, United Kingdom (2019); Imagined Communities, 21st Contemporary Art Biennial Sesc_Videobrasil, São Paulo, Brasil (2019); A Pillar of Smoke, 49th Rencontres d'Arles, Arles, France (2018); The Way Beyond Art, Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands (2017); The Future Is Already Here – It’s Just Not Evenly Distributed, 20th Biennale of Sydney, Australia (2016); South by Southeast. A Further Surface, Guangdong Times Museum, Guangzhou, China (2016); Istanbul: Passion, Joy, Fury, MAXXI, Rome, Italy (2015); Rainbow in the Dark, Malmö Konstmuseum, Sweden (2015); Cappadocia Struck, Contemporary Art Programme Cappadox, Uçhisar, Nevşehir, Türkiye (2015); How to (...) things that don’t exist, 31st Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil (2014); Ghosts, Spies and Grandmothers, SeMA Biennial, Mediacity Seoul, Korea (2014); AGITATIONISM, EVA International Ireland’s Biennial, Limerick City, Ireland (2014); 6th Berlin Biennale, Germany (2010) and What Keeps Mankind Alive?, 11th International Istanbul Biennial, Türkiye (2009).
Başak Doğa Temür
The curator of the Türkiye Pavilion, Başak Doğa Temür, took part in the founding processes of Istanbul Modern, santralistanbul and Arter in the early 2000s, when Istanbul’s museum and cultural landscape began to rapidly expand. Between 2010 and 2020, she was a member of Arter’s curatorial team and artistic programme board, contributing to exhibition coordination and management, publications, and the realisation of new productions.
Her experience also includes part-time teaching at Istanbul Bilgi University in the Film and Television and Visual Communication Design programmes. She has served on advisory boards and juries including the Türkiye Pavilion Advisory Board (2017–2019), BASE 2018, the CultureCIVIC: Arts and Culture Support Programme – Art Production Grants, and the pre-selection jury for the Berlin Senate’s Istanbul–Berlin Residency Programme.
She has curated exhibitions including Altan Gürman: A Retrospective (2019, Arter, Istanbul); Rosa Barba: The Hidden Conference (2019, Arter, Istanbul); Ali Mahmut Demirel: Isle (2018, Arter, Istanbul); Šejla Kamerić: When the Heart Goes Bing Bam Boom (2015, Arter, Istanbul); Fatma Bucak: Yet Another Story About the Fall (2013, Arter, Istanbul); Mat Collishaw: Afterimage (2013, Arter, Istanbul); Nevin Aladağ: Stage (2012, Arter, Istanbul); Patricia Piccinini: Hold Me Close to Your Heart (2011, Arter, Istanbul); and Transfer Turkey–NRW (2005–2007, Santralistanbul, Istanbul), co-curated with Emre Baykal.
The Advisory Board for the Türkiye Pavilion
In order to ensure that the Türkiye Pavilion exhibitions independently reflect the diversity and current ideas in Türkiye’s contemporary art and architecture scenes, İKSV determines the invited curators, artists, and architects through structured selection processes. For the International Art Exhibitions, selections are made upon the recommendation of an advisory board. The Advisory Board for the Türkiye Pavilion in 2026 includes art historian and academic Dr. Ceren Özpınar; curator, writer, and academic Chus Martínez; curator Öykü Özsoy Sağnak; and curator and writer Ulya Soley.
The Türkiye Pavilion at the Biennale Arte
As the commissioner of the Pavilion, İKSV brings together institutional and individual support each year to provide the necessary resources for the invited artists and architects to develop their works under the best possible conditions. The Türkiye Pavilion is realised through the initiative of İKSV and the support of Akbank, Akfen Holding, Füsun-Faruk Eczacıbaşı, Oya-Bülent Eczacıbaşı, Emin Hitay, Feride-Güney İkiz, İpek Ilıcak Kayaalp, Dilara Altınkılıç Kutmangil, Uludağ Beverage, the Z. Yıldırım Family, Burcu Acartürk Yıldız, and Turgut Yılmaz. Root Karaköy Hotel / Sub Karaköy is providing accommodation support.
İKSV has been coordinating the Türkiye Pavilion since 2007, and since 2014, the Pavilion has a permanent venue at the Sale d’Armi, Arsenale, thanks to the initiative of İKSV and support of 21 sponsors for a 20-year period from 2014 to 2034. The individuals and institutions that have enabled Türkiye to secure a long-term venue at the Venice Biennale exhibitions include Akbank, Mehveş-Dalınç Arıburnu, Berrak-Nezih Barut, Ali Raif Dinçkök, Vuslat Doğan Sabancı, Füsun-Faruk Eczacıbaşı, Oya-Bülent Eczacıbaşı, Nesrin Esirtgen, Eti Gıda San. ve Tic. AŞ, Garanti BBVA, Ahu-Can Has, Öner Kocabeyoğlu, MAÇAKIZI, Tansa Mermerci, Rana-Erol Tabanca, SAHA Association, Taha Tatlıcı, Sinan Tara, Vehbi Koç Foundation, the Z. Yıldırım Family, and Yıldız Holding AŞ.