Under what conditions do images become pornographic, and when do they become exhibitionistic? Is there such a thing as an exhibitionist tradition? Or is an image free from exhibitionism possible? How have images been produced, if at all, in different times and places?
The Pornography of the Image develops around these questions, which Zeynep Sayın initially posed to herself as an existential problem. She follows the path of images from eras when they were not yet "art"—from Roman death masks and Byzantine icons to written images in Anatolia—all the way to the early 20th century and up to the present day, constantly pursuing these questions.