AS THIN AS A PROMISE
17.09 - 18.10.2025
As one of the parallel events of the 18th Istanbul Biennial, “As Thin as a Promise” is being held by Galeri Nev at Merdiven Art Space. Engaging with the themes of selfpreservation and the possibilities of the future, the exhibition connects with the “Three-Legged Cat” Biennial through its exploration of the relationship between grace and balance, time and breath, solidarity and resilience. Presenting the fragile object as a metaphor for the fragile society, “As Thin as a Promise” opens on September 17 and runs until October 18.
The exhibition brings together twenty-three artists from different generations who work with ceramics not only as a medium to create ‘fragile objects’ but rather as a material for their sculptures, canvases, and installations; not only taking the clay at its face value but rather investigating its possibilities by blending it with paper, wood, and glass. Born between the early 1930s and the late 1990s, all these artists will be spending the day at the gallery during the opening day, to be closely acquainted with visitors but also with each other and their mutual art practices. The fact that invited artists are women, obviously recalls their historically ‘fragile’ position of in the history of art. However, the exhibition also aims to highlight the often-feminine perception and thus the secondary status of ceramics itself as a material, and of craft more broadly. In other words, by revealing the cracked and reassembled, scratched, painted, and altered surfaces beneath the glazed finish—sometimes associated with its “secret formula” that borders a certain orientalism— Galeri Nev presents the works of these women ceramicists as proposals for ‘possibilities of self-preservation’. This also finds its reflection in the tactile sensibility that unites the works in “As Thin as a Promise”. Pieces reminds us that warmth and softness can sometimes be more fragile than what is cold and hard; that something light can become suddenly heavy when embraced; that the animal can become more human than the human; that the furry can also be clawed, the dead, alive; that the hand can stand in for the eye. Within the intimate space of Merdiven Art Space, the exhibition invites the viewer to maintain their balance with care—and, at times, to hold their breath.
