Looking back over half a century of confronting the Hydra-headed force of global affairs, the esteemed Turkish artist Gülsün Karamustafa has two words for humanity: hollow and broken. These words also form the first part of “A State of the World,” the title of her Türkiye Pavilion exhibition at the 60th Venice Biennale—reflecting their concern in the face of the systemic self-destructiveness of modern existence.
“When I was informed about Venice, the war was continuing in Ukraine. We also had this unbelievably harsh earthquake in southeastern Turkey and Syria in which many lives were lost. Then, when I started to think over a new project for Venice, a new war started,” Karamustafa tells me over the phone, contemplating her present means of inspiration, aligned with what could be aptly described as a dark and solemn vision of the state of the world. “This made me very decisive of whatwas about this hollowness of the world, as well as this ever-shifting playground for wars, because all my life I have been living with the idea of war, where everything around me was falling down. I thought it would be good to talk about this in the venue I was given, the Venice Arsenale.”
