The Concept of Modernism and the Emergence of Modernist Art in Turkey

“Aesthetic modernism” is the most crucial concept in art histories today. The Eurocentric holistic narratives that viewed modernism as a monolithic aesthetic and a history that spread from European centers to peripheral cultures, following Westernization, have long since fragmented. Plural histories of modernism have emerged, tracing the process of the birth of modernist art in various societies. Thus, a tremendous body of knowledge has come to light, revealing how different cultures from Asia, Africa, and Latin America discovered the creativity of their own art without being confined by the dogmas of Western colonial history. The Birth of Modernist Art in Turkey opens a window to this accumulation after addressing the concept of “aesthetic modernism” and post-colonial contemporary historiography. It then examines the conventional art historical narrative in Turkey, developing a contemporary historical thesis based on the modernist break and the process of art’s autonomization. “All art that is valid today defines itself through its relation to modernism.”

Peter Bürger (1984)