Exhibitions that include both Greek and Turkish Cypriots would previously have been called bi-communal but things are changing
I HAD to take a sudden reality check last Saturday morning. There I was in a disused and empty house in Tansimat Street, just by the walls in north Nicosia, attaching stands to some halogen lamps for an art installation. Artist Nicholas Panayi and our friend and model Pambos were cursing the lack of a ladder as they wobbled on an upturned tea chest trying to fix a huge piece of satin over one of the old house’s traditional stone arches. On the satin, drawn in bleach, was a very dramatic image of two figures, themselves forming an arch. Through it shone the sun that afternoon, throwing the figures into dramatic relief.
That wasn’t why a needed a reality check. If you had told me four years ago, when I first came here, that by the time I left Cyprus there would be nothing more natural than to find myself in the north laughing and joking with a couple of Greek Cypriots in the house of a Turkish Cypriot artist acquaintance, who wasn’t even present at the time, I wouldn’t have believed you. Let alone the smiling exchanges with the neighbour opposite who is kindly feeding an electricity supply over from his balcony across the road. And then the arrival of Zehra Sonya with plastic bags full of light bulbs and pastries. For it is she who is making the other half of this joint exhibition.
In the aftermath of April 23, 2003 this would have all been very self conscious and would have been labelled bi-communal but nowadays the language is changing. We don’t call it anything. It is Nicholas Panayi showing with Zehra Sonya – they happen to have an artistic concept in common which is sufficient reason. Yet for all that, Cyprus is long on clear blue skies this didn’t happen out of one. A cynic might say that it is exactly what we all feared and Denktash wanted – the normalisation of division. Possibly. But how could one be churlish about the results in terms of people now working together so easily? Over the last year, Art Aware, a UN funded idea thought up by Nicholas Panayi and Nilgun Guney, has had a significant effect. In providing a forum every month for one artist from each side to present a slide show and discussion, a very solid community has gradually grown up and the project has given rise to all kinds of other initiatives such as the show in Tanzimat Street.
During this week there has been an exhibition opening at 8pm every evening in the old town in the north, creating an unprecedented art festival atmosphere. On Monday Nicholas and Zehra opened an illuminated house – In-Sight: lit fabrics and pictures and other surprises. On Tuesday, Emin Cizenel opened his show Syncopation at the HP gallery and on Wednesday a group exhibition of the European Mediterranean Artists Association opened in the municipal building opposite the folk art museum by Ayia Sofias. On Thursday, another group with Ince Cansu and Ismet Tatar opened an exhibition in the Iktsat Bank and on Friday another joint show in the Buyuk Khan.
Then Horst Weierstall’s show Face to Face in the wonderful Sabor restaurant, that has single-handedly regenerated life in this previously sadly deserted part of Nicosia.
I tried to go to Art Aware’s last meeting last Saturday, full of enthusiasm to see and hear about the work of Glyn Hughes and Feridun Isiman (who recently had a large scale personal show at the Attaturk Cultural Centre). However the technical gremlins got into the works and refused to project any red colours. Unsurprisingly both Glyn and Feridun reckoned their pictures would just not look the same with that part of the spectrum missing. So it will now take place at 8pm on May 21 at the Arabahmet Cultural Centre and I strongly recommend what promises to be a very interesting evening.
Meanwhile taken together with Yiannis Toumazis’ huge exhibition of Cypriot artists at the Powerhouse to launch the Manifesta and the international Leaps of Faith project at the Green Line and much else, the ochre medallion is positively bursting its walls with art events this May. As you read this most of the shows will be already open so why not go on an art-crawl and see the lot?
