Talking about the relationship between art and politics corresponds to an intellectually provocative action for the vast majority. When we view history, we can see that art in Nazi Germany legitimized the position of high culture and added many symbols and images to the cultural missions of the Nazis. According to Walter Benjamin, fascism can be called as “aestheticized politics“.
Art in Turkish context has been instrumentalized by the ruling elites most of the time so far however this time it also seems that art is also used as a tool by the unaudited local governments. This article is an attempt to address the current debates around controversial sculptures dominating Turkish social media. The headline of this article has been given as an inspiration from the recent debates circulated on Twitter.
Turkey is famous for its plethora of historical places and impressive monuments. However the controversial sculptures built in some cities raised debates. A prominent Turkish artist Gürkan Coşkun has defended sculptures and statues that mostly stand at the entrances of the cities depicting things those cities are known for, saying that they were “examples of Turkish pop art.” According to Coşkun, “these artistic works are popular and absolutely creative,” and “Turkish contemporary art must follow these works’ steps. These are the symbols of the people of this region expressing themselves in their own ways.”
Some people reacted on social media over the artist’s evaluation and called these sculptures and statues as “poop art”. There are quite bizarre sculptures and statues built in some particular cities. For instance, in capital Ankara there is a T-Rex dinosaur statue and researcher Mete Sohtaoğlu in an ironic way says that it replaces ‘Transformers’ robot.
Journalist Arzu Geybulleva argues that Turkey’s spectacular city statues raise questions about art and corruption. In a detailed news-analysis she wrote, she said that “The watermelon statue in Diyarbakir reportedly cost 4.4 million Turkish Lira (517,000 US dollars)… The budget for these statues is not transparent and is often associated with corruption at the local government level.”
