Humor and Satire

5. September bis 8. November 2009

Kulturamt Neukölln, Galerie im Saalbau, Berlin
Karl-Marx-Str. 141, 12043 Berlin

Opening: 4. September 2009, 19 Uhr


Do Muslim people have a sense of humour? Since the debate on the Mohammad cartoons that have been published in Denmark Europeans are engaged with this issue. Taking a selection of old and new examples of Turkish cartoons the exhibition The Sultan’s Nose – Cartoons from Turkey shows how central a role satire has played as a form of socio-political argument since the time of the sultans in Turkey.
Within the exhibition cartoonists will be presented who are regarded as classics in Turkey: since the 1950s graphic artists like Turhan Selcuk and Tan Oral captivate with intellectually and artistically ambitious representations and manifestations of the changes in metropolises like Istanbul. Tonguc Yasar’s award-winning animation film “Amentü Gemis nasil yürüdü” (How did the ship Amentü begin to sail) which will be projected during the exhibition is a sensitive artistic debate with the Arab kalligraphic tradition of writing.

Simultaneously, the exhibition shows a representative selection of the younger generation of Turkish cartoonists. Saucy political drawings from the daily newspapers, powerful women, and the artists of the satire magazines “LeMan”, “Penguen” and “Uykusuz” are the main actors of the contemporary Turkish cartoon.

Next to the works of male and female cartoonists the documentary wing of the exhibition offers a broad and grounded view of the history and significance of the Turkish cartoon since the end of the 19th century.

Once it had been just a nose. Sultan Abdülhamit II (1842-1918) hated intimations regarding his formidable smelling organ so much that he himself had ordered the censorship to prohibit even the use of the word nose. This was stylishly laid on the masters’ pointed pen. No other nose has ever been such a popular subject of mockery.

In Turkey as well as in Europe, the artistic medium of cartoon came into being in the course of long time overdue political reforms during the last century of the Ottoman Empire. Just as the recent argument about the Mohammad cartoons reflects international tensions in the global arena, so the critical cartoons from Turkey are a mirror image of the political and social conflicts inherent in the country. A core subject is also the sustained debate with Europe which lasts since more than a century.

Things that are hit out at are nearly all those rarely found in the daily press: migration to the cities, all-powerful military, gender roles, family structures, bashing policemen, mafioso  politicians, violence against women, children and minorities, changing moral ideas, cybermania, the orientalisms of the West and the stereotypes about the West.

Accompanying the exhibition a publication is brought out by Istanbul University Press and the Berlin Publisher Dagyeli in a bilingual German-Turkish edition containing a selection of Turkish cartoons. This book will be available at a price of € 28.