Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum (SSM)

The Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum (SSM)

The Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum is an institution that delivers transformative cultural experiences.

SSM is committed to preserving, researching, developing and interpreting its collections and the holistic art heritage of Türkiye while creating common value with all its stakeholders in its exhibitions and events.

Shaping all its procedures and operations around an environmental awareness and a commitment to sustainability, SSM is Türkiye’s only green museum, receiving LEED Gold V4 certification in 2022.

SSM Collections

Sakıp Sabancı Museum presents the Book Arts and Calligraphy, Painting, Decorative Artifacts, Archaeological Artifacts Collections and Archives, which constitute its rich cultural and artistic accumulation, to the society by fulfilling all the requirements of contemporary museology.

Exhibitions held at SSM

The Prince’s Extraordinary World: Abdülmecid Efendi

In collaboration with Sabancı Holding, the exhibition titled The Prince’s Extraordinary World: Abdülmecid Efendi was based on the life and art of Abdülmecid Efendi, a prolific painter and the patron of many artists and artistic institutions. Abdülmecid Efendi also cultivated a fervent interest in calligraphy, music, and literature, leaving his mark on the history of art in Türkiye. A documentary on The Prince’s Extraordinary World: Abdülmecid Efendi, which was selected as the exhibition of the year by the arts and culture press, was filmed and later broadcast on the SSM YouTube channel. In the documentary, Sakıp Sabancı Museum Director Dr. Nazan Ölçer and several contributors to the exhibition catalog – Prof. Dr. Zafer Toprak, Prof. Dr. Evren Kutlay, Prof. Dr. Ali Satan, Danish Museums Conservation Center expert Filiz Kuvvetli and art historian Ömer Faruk Şerifoğlu – discussed different aspects of Abdülmecid Efendi’s life and art.

David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring, Normandy, 2020

In collaboration with Akbank, The Sakıp Sabancı Museum hosted David Hockney, one of the most inspiring artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, with his exhibition titled The Arrival of Spring, Normandy, 2020. SSM was the third museum venue for the exhibition, which was previously shown at the Royal Academy of Arts in London and BOZAR in Brussels.

Hockney, experimenting with new technologies and different methods of making art throughout his career, began to draw on an iPhone and iPad in the early 2000s. This exhibition, a culmination of this particular technological journey, includes 116 of the artist’s iPad paintings, the subject of which heralds the arrival of spring.

As part of the exhibition, SSM organized conferences that cover David Hockney’s entire artistic practice through its various stages.

Prince Abdülmecid Efendi and the Art of Calligraphy

Abdülmecid Efendi was widely known as a painter but also held a deep interest in music and calligraphy. He self-trained in calligraphy by making copies of panels by famous calligraphers in the palace collections, at a time when he was forced to live under surveillance in the palace, cut off from the outside world. Prince Abdülmecid Efendi and the Art of Calligraphy exhibition focuses on the sultans who were Prince Abdülmecid Efendi’s grandfather, uncle, father and cousin: Mahmud II (r. 1808-39), Sultan Abdülmecid (r. 1839-61), Sultan Abdülaziz (r. 1861-76) and Sultan Abdülhamid II (r. 1876-1909), respectively.

Turkish Painting: In the Pursuit of Modernism

The Sakıp Sabancı Museum Painting Collection is a personal collection focusing on a specific period of Turkish painting as well as a cultural legacy that provides insight into the early development of painting as an art form in Türkiye.

Agnes Denes. The Living Pyramid

Starting from 13 September 2022, the Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum is hosting The Living Pyramid exhibition by Agnes Denes, a pioneer of ecological art. The exhibition is being held under the main sponsorship of Sabancı Holding with communications sponsorship by Çimsa. The Living Pyramid portrays our relationship with nature as a metaphor for our existence in the world. Agnes Denes’ Manifesto, written in 1969, will also be on display in the SSM garden as part of its permanent collection.

Held as part of the exhibition, the “Living Pyramid Talks” conference series brings together art historians, academics and writers to discuss Agnes Denes’ artistic practice in its various aspects.

Hussein Chalayan. Prompters

In his new solo exhibition Prompters, on display between September 16, 2022 – January 29, 2023; Hussein Chalayan uses new media to focus on the human body and modern anthropology.

The three series presented in the exhibition include Pre-tension, inspired by the concept of pretension that is often criticized in popular culture; Fake Celebrations, a protest against our escalating “digital isolation” state; and Post-Colonial Body, dealing with the dance movements of certain ethnic groups colonized by the West. For Hussein Chalayan, each object in these installations acts as a “prompter,” filling in the gaps within these subjects.

Designed and directed by Hussein Chalayan, the film of the performance titled Gravity Fatigue deals with identity, disembodiment, migration, and metamorphosis – all areas of ongoing interest for the artist.

SSM Learning Programs

Programs for Children

SSM Learning Programs for Children are designed for youth in different age groups and held in the museum and online throughout the year. In addition to workshops organized in parallel with current exhibitions, SSM organizes various workshops and guided tours for school groups covering key subjects such as art movements, painting, science, nature and abstract art.

Programs for Adults

SSM Learning Programs for Adults were conducted in 2022 with a range of topics. Administered by faculty members from the General Art History Department, a 14-week program was held online in collaboration with Istanbul University. The online offering presented a comprehensive art history class that chronologically conveyed all the period of art up to the 20th century.

As part of the David Hockney exhibition, “Botanical Illustration” workshops were held for interested attendees. Concurrent with the Agnes Denes exhibition, therapeutic workshops titled “Art Heals” were held for the first time in Türkiye.

digitalSSM Projects

The Sakıp Sabancı Museum digitalSSM Archive and Research Space focuses on issues such as digital archiving, digital preservation, and the transfer of technological artworks to the future.

This year, digitalSSM commenced a research initiative: “VARIANT. Documenting New Media Art.” A conference series was conducted in conjunction with this effort. The conference series served as a platform for academics, new media artists and digital preservation experts to discuss the archiving processes of new media and artificial intelligence tools, documentation methods and the documentation practices of museums.

Video recordings of the conferences are available on the SSM YouTube channel.

Open Air Events

The Stage at the Museum

Organized with the support of the Sabancı Foundation since 2017, The Stage at the Museum hosts a series of performing arts events of public importance throughout the year. This year, “The World Is a 419 PPM Stage” focused on the climate crisis and ecological destruction between August 10-14, 2022. Although widely described as a red alert for humanity, the theme of climate emergency is absent in Türkiye’s performing arts scene. To fill this gap, The Stage at the Museum commissioned three writers to write three plays to be performed in three different stage productions. After their premieres at The Stage at the Museum, the plays were performed at other various venues throughout the season.

In the unique series, Taş (Stone) was written by Şebnem İşigüzel and directed by Zinnure Türe, Libido was written by Nadir Sönmez and directed by Ayşe Lebriz Berkem, and Tek Kullanımlık Hikâye (A Disposable Story) was written by Volkan Çıkıntoğlu and directed by Gülhan Kadim. Each of these climate-crisis themed plays received with their first audience at The Stage at the Museum.

Yoga

A highly popular series every year, “Yoga at the Museum” was held on the terrace of SSM with sweeping views of the Bosporus between May and September in 2022.