Sotheby’s got into the Turkish art scene in 2009 with a local division within its Islamic Art department. How did we get so much attention all of a sudden? It wasn’t that the Turks didn’t have enough art to promote prior to the 2000s. It was that the money was not attracted to art at the time. The royal Ottoman and the Anatolian antiquities received much more appreciation given the dedication to our majestic history, the wealth of the rooted families and the presence and the authority of the older generation. The rich seniors found unlimited sophistication in becoming antiquity collectors and their hobby promoted an exclusive commerce between a handful of high profile Turkish families. The likes of Ayşegül Tecimer and Leyla Akçağlılar became the wanted profiles of antiquities auctions and the Turkish Art market stayed unappreciated and undervalued.

Once the grandfathers, the great grandmothers passed away, the younger generation stacked the porcelains, the swords and the pitchers inside a “trophy room”, sold a few precious ones and rushed into the bold and edgy international art auctions. The Çanakkale Pitchers, Sultan’s signatures and the Ottoman Edicts no longer made an impact on the walls and Burhan Doğançay, Mübin Orhon, Komet and Nejad Melih Devrim canvases came in to save the day. The Turkish contemporary art finally found harmony between supply and demand, pushing valuations to reasonable levels.

As the rich younger generation slowly expanded their art collections, the boom in real estate and the Internet brought in a chunky nouveau riche desperate to soak themselves in practical sophistication. The urban expansion in Istanbul and the push to global cosmopolitan standards made locals especially with a university degree desperate for hints of art. The government’s failure in providing the means gave the wealthy families an opportunity to lure people into their private museums. Suddenly Istanbul was flushed with hand selected exhibitions from all over the world. Despite the undeniable lack in essential local education, art lovers choaked themselves in the likes of Jean-Paul Riopelles and Monets. The Turks rushed into the senior classes for a degree in Art without completing any of the prerequisites. The boom, the need in art was never suppressed with a national museum of art that can set the standards and introduce the local pioneers in Turkish Art. The lack of any official support gave the so called art connoisseurs the grounds to make their own valuations, leading to a current apparent overvaluation within the contemporary Turkish Art market.

So now, we are in an era of what I like to refer as “alan memnun, satan memnun” (both the buyer and the seller are happy with their transaction). With enough demand and no standards that guide the valuations, the Turkish art market continues its reigns as a premature market that serves not as an investment tool, but as a mean to fulfilling only aesthetic tastes.

“Cage of Flesh” by Taner Ceylan. USD 160K – 239K

“Rise and Shine” by Ayça Telgeren. USD 12,800 – 19,200

“The Two Banks” by Mehmet Güleryüz. USD 128K – 192K

Untitled – Selim Turan. USD 12,800 – 19,200

Karaköy, previously known as Karayköy (named after the Karay Turks that once heavily occupied the area) has been a crucial transportation hub for Istanbul. Located on the northern tip of the Golden Horn and the southern entrance to the Bosphorus, it has been dear to shipping, storage and insurance companies for centuries. As a hub to constant transportation and commerce, it has also been a crucial location for banks and loan companies and welcomed residents from all over the world. That is why towards the end of the 19th century, Karaköy filled up with massive warehouses, glamorous bank buildings, multi-floored commercial buildings and numerous tavernas along the shore. With its Italians, Russians, Spanish, British and Turks it was the neighborhood that never slept.

You are reminded of such glamorous past as you walk through the haunted buildings that once housed so much life. Around the tiny streets, groups of scrap, lightning and paint shops pop out of the gray. They are still in business but give the impression that they too might soon close shop. It is impossible not to notice the sudden shift in dynamics. Once there was life here and one day it decided to move somewhere else. The boutique signs inside the abandoned commercial buildings are still up where they should be. Marbled floors of tiny shops hide behind the shaded sunlight. It is as if all the proprietors ran out for a fire drill and never came back to Karaköy. Everything around this haunted neighborhood is now considered a national treasure and can’t be run down. The walls, the engravings on the ceilings: the magnificent Ottoman architecture is soaked in dirt and dust, anxiously waiting for the day it will be brought back to life.

Commercial life moved away from Karaköy to other neighborhoods that accomodated the modern day structures at the start of the 20th century. Businesses moved into plazas, shipments moved into larger ports that handled larger vessels. Sea transportation lost its glamour to faster trains and airplanes. Built to serve the ancient ways this blessed neighborhood had no other choice but to suddenly resign from the game and until today it quietly watched the urban life expand beyond its horizons.

Commerce and finance left these picturesque streets for good, but the social life yearning for the glamour of the past is moving back to Karaköy with money to spend and a greater vision to rebuild. Intellectual coffee shops, innovative art galleries, modern art museums, fashionable boutiques, modernized bakery shops, overpriced urban restaurants pop out next to horrifying scrap shops and crippled mosques. Signs of hotel constructions are carefully mounted on the cracked asphalts. They are all signaling the start of a massive shift in Karaköy. They yell out the end of the transition days, ready to push out the secondary market shops and bring in the pearls of the contemporary life. The days of undervalued real estate are already over here. And that alone marks the start to the big comeback of an abandoned neighborhood, once serving as the main artery to the Istanbulian life, just like the Meatpacking district in Manhattan.

View Walking through Karakoy in a larger map

Last weekend at a private engagement, Burhan Öçal, a local percussion artist, got on the stage with his darbuka and performed wonders with Murat Uncuoğlu, a house music DJ, on the background. With hips shaking and hands clapping he reconfirmed that nothing in this world becomes obsolete as long as one has the vision and creativity to refit them into the modern world.

The climb upto the ski resort can get a little tougher given good amounts of snow. So I recommend a 4-wheel drive car with winter tires intact. Unlike Uludağ (another Turkish ski resort) in Bursa, the climb to Kartalkaya does not start near a town center and is not abundant in taxis (if your car fails you on the way up). There is still a tiny gas station if you are running out of fuel (like we were).

What to expect? If your standards are set around the American and European ski resorts, Kartalkaya will undoubtedly, like all the other Turkish resorts, be the smallest mountain you have ever visited. Yet, considering the other local mountains that are accessible by car from Istanbul this place stands out with its refined crowd, less traffic and good quality snow. I recommend you stay on the slopes during the regular lunch hours to benefit from shorter lines and opt for a late lunch. The one thing that bothered me a lot in Kartalkaya was the long T-bar rides. The mountain doesn’t have any chair lifts, making the ride to the top of the slopes slow and tiring.

Where to stay? Hotels here are either old, traditional, but economical or brand new, design-friendly, but expensive. Rates include breakfast, dinner and ski passes for the duration of your stay. We chose to stay at Golden Key Hotel to attend the weekend birthday bash for a close friend. It is one of the most expensive hotels on the mountain (equals the budget of a less luxurious European ski getaway). The entrance floor lobby and the reading room upstairs reminds one of a cozy Phillippe Starck chalet, but the rooms can use a little upgrade in terms of TV size and bathroom details such as the showers and the complimentary cleansing products. The staff at Golden Key is extremely attentive and the room service is one of the fastest I have ever seen. Yes the rate here equals the rate of a luxury hotel on a European ski resort, but for the fashionable Istanbul locals yearning for a winter weekend getaway, Golden Key Kartalkaya provides the closest and the hippest ski vacation.

Favorite Slopes Dede, Latif, Efe

Isn’t it the best man and the maid of honor’s (there is always one of each even though the wedding is not a Catholic one) duty to arrange and surprise the couple with their completely unexpected thrill rides? Isn’t there supposed to be loads of distraction (not just lame strippers)?

The bachelor/bachelorette party is the one night of freedom for the man and the woman who will soon have to greet hundreds of guests, move into a new house, open hundreds of gifts and deal with their own family issues. It could be some ordinary tea time at home, a weekend getaway or some sweaty humid night on the lap of a stripper. Whatever the setting, that bachelor party should be the night to pamper, entertain, intoxicate and kindly harass the bride and the groom (preferably separately and mostly without their consent). The Hollywood movies are the ones to tell the tale and the ones who get to live it that way should consider themselves lucky.

There is that certain urge to get out in the sun, chill the wine, order up the good food, crank up the volume, gather the good friends and just get jiggy with music. Spring is just around the corner yet again. Time for the dance classes to begin…

Click here to download Dance Class 101

Step 1 – Appreciate the game-changing past

The first big deal is “Rembrandt and His Contemporaries The Golden Age of Dutch Art” at the Sakıp Sabancı Museum in Emirgan. This show is practically a flush of precious Baroque art that was not intended for the walls of royal palaces. It encompasses the art produced for the influential, nouveau riche Dutch families. That is why besides the Biblical themes the viewer gets the enjoy a portrait of a butcher taking care of his daily business at the town center or the still life of a patch of asparaguses tied together. This Sabancı exhibition is so extensive that it even tops my visits to Rijksmuseum and the house of Rembrandt in Amsterdam. It picks up right at the shine of the Dutch glory days and walks the visitor through the times when the merchants had enough money to freeze anything they liked inside the frames they commissioned. “Rembrandt and His Contemporaries” will be up at the Sabancı Museum until 10 June 2012 (more than enough time to defeat laziness and go see it).

Step 2 – Reward the now that surfaces the precious past

The second diamond in the rough is a much smaller show in Karaköy, but it is equally impressive. Artist Murat Akagündüz’s “Hell-Heaven” at Galeri Mana freezes time over the mystical Anatolian earth to surface the fascination of ancient Assyrian monasteries. The huge smartly-detailed canvases spread around two floors are accompanied by a video installation that tracks the cold muddy currents of the river Fırat and the anxious eyes of the endangered Anatolian birds. The medium used on the canvases is resin, the compound that is used to make paint, an unconventional but cherished approach by the artist, strengthening his art’s attachment to perishable origin.  The purpose of this precious collection is simple. It forces the viewer into an epiphany, forcing one to appreciate the chivalry of Anatolia and remember its fragility against the sands of time. You can view “Hell-Heaven” and purchase favored pieces at Galeri Mana until 28 April 2012.

Step 3 – Acknowledge the contemporary that questions the now

The final recommendation from my art outings is the Palestinian artist, Mona Hatoum’s “You are still here” at Arter in Beyoğlu. This show is the artist’s first solo exhibition in Turkey and presents more than 30 works dating from the 90s to the present. Spread on three floors Hatoum’s life-sized and over-sized pieces take everyday household furnitures and turn them into objects of discomfort. The dressing screen we use to securely undress behind is turned into an ice-cold, see-through metallic vegetable slicer/grinder. The medical cabinet we use to get healthier is filled with fragile hand grenades made from Murano glasses. The cradle we trust in unconditionally with our babies is made from hundreds of laboratory tubes stuck together. There is an undeniable force to question the reliability of our comfort zone in this exhibition. It forces us to get out of the illusion we created to feel secure by composing our favored everyday items with objects of destruction. One of the strongest pieces in the show is certainly a plain wall mirror stamped with “You are still here” in Arabic: a message that clearly defines no boundaries in interpretation. “You are still here” will be up at Arter until 27 May 2012.

Corviglia/Piz Nair is the closest, most popular and expansive slope network found above St. Moritz. The other frequented one that also provides night skiing every Friday is Corvatsch. It can be accessed with a free bus (once a valid ski lift pass is purchased) from the town center.

The lifts open at 7.45 and are done for the day sharp at 4 pm. Given the fact that most of the skiers here (including you) are excessively fond of comfort, nobody dares make it up before 10 in the morning. The train leaves the station every 15 minutes on the way up and you will find it most crowded between the hours of 9 and 10.

My favorite slopes on Corviglia have been 1, 2 (accessed through lift I), 4 (accessed though lifts J or L), 16 (accessed through D, W or V) and 22 (accessed through S).

We preferred to start skiing around 10am, take a 30 minute break around 12 at one of the slope side bars (to enjoy the diverse alcoholic shots) and sit down for lunch at 2pm sharp. My favorite slope side restaurants have been Alpina Hütte for its amazing Raclette and El Paradiso (downstairs seating) for its delicious filet mignon and creamy mille feuille. Ski right back to Mathis if you are up for a wondrous lobster club sandwich and amazing black truffle taglietelle (but be prepared for a hefty bill at checkout). Reservations are a must at all these locations. The last train down to St. Moritz leaves at 5:05 pm and gives you just enough time for a happy hour shot at the Ice Bar right across from the ski shop.

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