Turkey, day two

Yesterday, despite the fact that I still felt a little bit like death, we went to the Istanbul Modern--a feature of Istanbul that is less than a decade old! I know next to nothing about Turkish art of any sort, but this merely gave me an excuse for my favorite sightseeing activity: reading ALL THE PLAQUES. As far as I can surmise from the museum, in the last 100 or 150 years lots of Turkish artists were sent with government and other grant money to study art in other European cities, especially Paris. This is pretty cool in the context of French/other art of the time, because you can see the broader movements in which the Turkish artists situated themselves. I especially enjoyed learning about and examining the works of the so-called 1914 Generation, Turkish artists who studied in Paris before World War I and who were inspired by the Impressionists, and almost all of the twentieth-century painting was fascinating to study.

I usually have mixed feelings on contemporary art on the whole, but most of the large-scale sculptures and A/V installations that formed the bulk of the Istanbul Modern's contemporary collection were at least interesting to read about if not exactly to my taste. It was also one of those museums where sometimes you can't always tell what's on exhibit and what isn't--a guard reprimanded a little boy for playing with part of the staircase. (It reminded me of this one time when we were little and my mom took my sister and I to the Thomas Edison House and my sister got yelled at by a museum person for sitting in like this antique chair that belonged to Thomas Edison--she had just thought it was a good chair to sit and pout and be four years old in. She may or may not yell at me in turn for sharing this story.)

After wrapping up our walk through the museum, we had a lovely tea and dessert at the museum cafe. Because I am a failure, I didn't take a picture of the beautiful and delightful baked sütlaç (rice pudding) my grandmother and I shared, but rest assured that it was equal parts gorgeous and delicious. I'm also falling a tiny bit in love with Turkish tea cups.

Today, unfortunately, the weather is like this. As excited as I am to finally see snow this winter, it may deter our plans to leave the house and do culturally enriching things (since most of those things involve being outdoors). Also, apparently Istanbul handles snow about as well as my esteemed hometown... so, not well at all.

Add lots of mud to this snow and you'll get an idea of what the city looks like.