Fulya Erdemci, Influential Turkish Curator, Dies at 60

Fulya Erdemci, the internationally renowned Turkish curator and former director of the Istanbul Biennial, has died at age 60 from cancer. The Istanbul Biennial confirmed her death via social media, honoring her tenure as director from 1994 to 2000. Born in 1962, Erdemci studied at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul and Columbia University in New York. In 2002, she founded the Istanbul Pedestrian Exhibitions, a pioneering public exhibition project in Turkey, followed by a second edition in 2005 co-curated with Turkish-Swiss artist Emre Baykal. She curated the Turkish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2011 and directed the 13th Istanbul Biennial in 2013, which coincided with the Gezi Park protests. That year, she also joined protests in Venice alongside other Turkish curators, artists, and patrons against the brutal crackdown in Istanbul. Her other curatorial projects include the Bienal de São Paulo (2002), the Moscow Biennale (2007), and the Biennale of Art in Public Space in Christchurch, New Zealand (2008). From 2008, she lived between Istanbul and Amsterdam, directing the SKOR Foundation for Art and Public Domain. In 2020, she was appointed curator of the KØS Museum of Art in Public Spaces in Denmark. Erdemci was a passionate advocate for public space, stating in a 2008 interview with Metropolis M that most contemporary art is not meant to last forever, but to relate to a specific situation, moment, people, and context that changes over time.