WHAT IF?

Elusive art critic Trexit Salvador chooses 30 questions to interrogate the art community in Turkey and reveal his love for the world of art on the sly.

3 January 2025|In Love Letters| TREXIT SALVADOR
  1. What if we had more appreciation for the historical remains in every corner of Turkey?
  2. What if figural painting and sculpture were not banned in the empire centuries ago?
  3. What if foreign guests visiting Turkey had not been allowed to take our archeological remains out of the country duringthe final years of the Ottoman Empire?
  4. What if relics in state museums did not go missing?
  5. What if people from the art world didn’t abuse their cultural, ethnic or sexual identities for their own benefit?
  6. What if we realised that art and culture are interdependent?
  7. What if there were no censorship or self-censorship in artistic expression?
  8. What if we realised that art is not just for entertainment?
  9. What if painting was not tainted with the word “contemporary”, unlike cinema, poetry or literature?
  10. What if we taught our children that art is as important as mathematics and physics?
  11. What if young people who want to study art were not considered idle and worthless?
  12. What if we saw artists as artists, not workers?
  13. What if the government introduced short-, medium-, and long-term policies to improve the working and living conditions of creative people?
  14. What if art institutions showed more respect to the artists they worked with and tasked themselves with nurturingtheir development?
  15. What if artists united and became organised?
  16. What if artists were fluent in at least one foreign language in order to express their worldview and art practice on international platforms?
  17. What if the big publishers, which produce books read by millions, were to also publish books by local artists?
  18. What if some artists made more effort to not create derivative work, repeating elements like colour, concept and themes over and over again?
  19. What if we had an arts residency program that served to improve social dialogues through state-endorsed international programs?
  20. What if no one discriminated based on an artist’s identity and background?
  21. What if established artists, curators and decision-makers took more initiative in developing and expanding the arts and culture scene in cooperation with their successors-to-be and in sync with the times?
  22. What if work by world-famous artists were included in the collections of Turkish museums?
  23. What if cultural and art foundations supported artists who come from a broad range of belief systems instead of supporting only those representing a specific minority?
  24. What if curators embraced the entire art scene, not just artists or galleries they enjoy working with?
  25. What if museum directors did not take advantage of their position for personal gain?
  26. What if people started collecting art after defining an aesthetic perspective based on their persona instead of buying art to impress their friends or climb the social ladder?
  27. What if funds and foundations were strictly impartial instead of promoting artists who swear allegiance to them?
  28. What if we embraced eastern culture in the same measure that we embrace western culture?
  29. What if the elites in the Anatolian region invested in the arts and culture to improve their hometowns and develop social responsibility projects for their fellow townspeople instead of settling in Istanbul and giving nothing back for their privilege?
  30. What if there were several world-famous galleries in Turkey?