Isabel Muñoz, Göbeklitepe, 2022 Archival Pigment Print 40 x 60cm, by courtesy of Isabel Muñoz

“In the case of Göbeklitepe, it’s not just about the origins, but about eternity as well. The site represents the beginning and the end of a civilization. (...) This mysterious aspect of the site allows us to dream about what happened there.”
Isabel Muñoz

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to experience Anatolia’s ancient cult sites through the eyes of those who lived there thousands of years ago? Spanish artist Isabel Muñoz aims to answer this question in its purest form with “A New Story – Photographs From and Around Göbeklitepe and its Surroundings”, an exhibition exclusively organized for the Pera Museum and now on display for the first time in Istanbul. Göbeklitepe, Karahantepe, and Sayburç, the three of Turkey’s most significant archaeological sites, come to life once again through the artist’s lens, capturing the views and emotions of the people from that era. Exploring dichotomies such as light and darkness, death and life, past and present, this special exhibition is put under the microscope in Hitit Mod’s Art Exploration of the Month section.

Muñoz, who presented her first exhibition in Turkey in 1992, covering diverse subjects from whirling dervishes to olive oil workers and from oil wrestling to Sulukule Romans, now directs her focus to Göbeklitepe and its surroundings, believed to be the oldest cult site in the world. The artist, honored with numerous awards such as the Spanish National Photography Prize and the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography, with exhibitions at prestigious institutions like the Venice Biennale and the International Center of Photography in New York, focuses on different cultures, people, and cultural assets around the world.

In the exhibition titled “A New Story – Photographs From and Around Göbeklitepe”, curated by François Cheval, the Director of the Mougins Center of Photography, Muñoz presents perhaps the most transparent rendition of Taş Tepeler (Stone Hills), which have held UNESCO World Heritage status since 2018, and of which Göbeklitepe is a part. In her quest to understand the relationship between us and the people who came before us, it is noteworthy that the artist steps out of her comfort zone and turns to new techniques. The photographs, created for the first time by using the “Tepetype” printing technique developed by the artist using soil, and the self-portrait in which she projects the electrical waves from her brain onto the human head figure at the Karahantepe Neolithic Site with the assistance of EEG, stand out as the must-see works. Muñoz also states that she experimented with gold and silver prints using 24-carat gold and glass, inspired by the Ottoman calligraphy.

© Toni Catalá, by courtesy of Isabel Muñoz

The artist Isabel Muñoz describes the mood of her exhibition, “A New Story – Photographs From and Around Göbeklitepe”, for Hitit Mod as follows:

I believe we evolved because of our innate need to share, and this is deeply intertwined with art.

“I feel incredibly privileged to share this new exploration. This area, currently recognized as the first cult site of humanity, was a space where Homo sapiens sought to experience and share their spirituality thousands of years ago. I believe we evolved because of our innate need to share, and this is deeply intertwined with art. Art and photography are about sharing. What I aimed to achieve was conveying their emotions, and the means to do that was by using natural light. In all of my works exhibited at the Pera Museum, I exclusively used night light, aspiring to be as close as possible to the emotions felt by the artists and people of that era. I believe they left messages for us. There are, I think, numerous untold stories awaiting exploration in this region, alongside the treasures already found. That’s why, in both the photo and video installations, I consistently strived to utilize the natural night light they once witnessed. I genuinely believe they had a profound understanding of the nature. They were much more advanced than we often acknowledge, and art provides a means to approach them as closely as possible.”

Emphasizing that “A New Story” is not an archaeology exhibition, the artist describes the photographs in the exhibition as a narrative of humanity, civilization, and the universe. The exhibition, aiming to unveil the shared emotions and thoughts between life and death from the past to the present, is captured in natural night light without any artificial lighting and offered to the audience.

The mood of the exhibition revolves around the concept of “sharing” and seeks to build a bridge between yesterday and today through emotions. Directing our focus to our origins, establishing a connection with our past on the common ground of being human, and exchanging information are just a few of the implications of this mood... The fact that Muñoz had the opportunity to collaborate with archaeologists in Turkey for the first time highlights an interdisciplinary and intercultural exchange.

View from the exhibition hall, by courtesy of the Pera Museum.

The exhibition, organized in collaboration with Pera Museum, the Spanish Embassy in Turkey, Istanbul Cervantes Institute, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Turkey, the Şanlıurfa Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, and the Göbeklitepe and Karahantepe Excavation Directorates, will continue to welcome visitors until September 17. In the museum, you can also explore the collections of “Oryantalist Resim” (Orientalist Painting), “Anadolu Ağırlık ve Ölçüleri” (Anatolian Weights and Measures), and “Kütahya Çini ve Seramikleri” (Kütahya Tiles and Ceramics) belonging to the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation, in addition to “A New Story”. Furthermore, you can experience the building itself, constructed by the architect Achille Manoussos in 1893 and completely revamped by the architect M. Sinan Genim, turning it into a modern and fully-equipped museum.

In addition, Muñoz’s other ongoing exhibition “Bailemos” (Let’s Dance) at Centro Niemeyer, Spain, curated by Rosa Olivares, will be open to visitors until October 15, 2023. For details about that exhibition, click here.