BiographyImages

Can Altay, b.1975, TR. Lives and works in Istanbul, TR

A recording studio. A stage. A newspaper. A mini-bar. Can Altay is an artist and designer blurring the edges of everyday and artistry to create platforms that fathom the fantastic among the familiar. His interest lies in how we inhabit urban spaces and systems, creating not just social interventions, but community contributions that reconfigure a place’s meaning and its use.

Education

1999 – 2004

Bilkent University, Ankara, TR, PhD in Art, Design and Architecture

1997 – 1999

Bilkent University, Ankara, TR, MFA in Interior Architecture and Environmental Design

1993 – 1997

Bilkent University, Ankara, TR , BFA in Interior Architecture and Environmental Design

Solo Exhibitions

2017

The Way Beyond Art, Van Abbesmuseum, NL (with Asli Altay)

Manifaturacılar Çarsısı Plakçılık Sunar, setting and recording label at 5533, IMÇ, Istanbul, TR (with  Saz Arkadasları)

2016

Virgolo Future Institute, ar/ge kunst, Bolzano, IT

Loughborough Records Presents Presence as part of Market Town, RADAR, Loughborough University, Loughborouh, UK

2015

Split Horizon (Domestic Disobedience), Oktem & Aykut, Istanbul, TR

Can Altay, Arcade, London, UK

2013

Inner Space Station, Protocinema, New York, US

2012

Distributed, Arcade, London, UK

Distributed, Frieze Projects East, Waltham Forest, London, UK

2011

COHAB: an assembly of spare parts, Casco, Utrecht, NL

2010

The Church Street Partners’ Gazette, The Showroom, London, UK

2008

Setting a Setting / Forecasting a Broken Past, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, DE

2007

Ey Ahali! / Setting a Setting / Letting a Setting Go, Spike Island, Bristol, UK

2006

No Bar, Just Bottles., The Abstract Cabinet at Sala Rekalde, Bilbao, SP

Selected Group Shows

2020

The Missing Planet (Visions and re-visions from the Pecci Centre’s and other collections), 
curated by Marco Scotini and Stefano Pezzato, exhibition design by Can Altay,
Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato IT

2018

Believe, Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto, Canada, CA

Yinchuan Biennale, curated by Marco Scotini, China

2017

Gaudiopolis 2017, OFF-Biennale, Budapest, HU

2016

We are the Centre, CCS Bard Hessel Museum of Art, New York, US

Selfmanagement, Galleria Enrico Astuni, Bologna, IT

Ahali at Glasgow School of Art, Reid Gallery, Glasgow, UK

Ahali at Ellen De Bruijne with Jeremiah Day, Amsterdam, NL

2015

Istanbul. Passion, Joy, Fury, MAXXI Foundation, Rome, IT

Old Intersections Make it New III, Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, GR

Too Early, Too Late: Middle East and Modernity, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna, IT

2014

The Oxymoron of Normality, Depo, Istanbul, TR

The 5th Marrakech Biennale, Marrakech, MA

2013   

Hotspot Istanbul, Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich, CH

2011

Safari, Le Lieu Unique, Nantes, FR

That’s the Way We Do It, Kunsthaus, Bregenz, AT

Huseyn Bahri Alptekin: I am not a Studio Artist, SALT Beyoglu, Istanbul, TR

2010

FROM A TO B, FROM B TO P, Bielefelder Kunstverein im Waldhof, DE & Le Confort Moderne, Poitiers, FR

‘Diverçity’, Learning From Istanbul, CSW Centrum Sztuki Wspolczesnej / Centre for Contemporary Art

Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, PL

Fantasy and Island, FRAC Corse, Corsica, FR

One Leading Away From Another, 303 Gallery, New York, US

Can Altay & Iman Issa, Rodeo Istanbul, TR

Open City:IABR in Istanbul, DEPO, Istanbul, TR

2009

The Columns Held Us Up, Artists Space, New York, US

4th International Architecture Biennale, Rotterdam, NL

Fantasy For Allan Kaprow, Contemporary Image Collective, Cairo, EG

If There Is No Audience, Centro Cultural Montehermoso, Vitoria-Gasteiz, SP

You don’t go slumming… (with Jeremiah Day), Arcade, London, UK

2008

New Ends Old Beginnings, The Bluecoat Liverpool, UK

Social Diagrams. Planning Reconsidered Kunstlerhaus Stuttgart, DE

Representations of the Artist as an Intellectual, D21, Leipzig, DE

2007

Movement, Contingency, and Community, Gallery 27, Seoul, KR

Says the Junk in the Yard, Flowers East, London, UK

2006

How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later, CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco, USA

A Tale of Two Cities: Busan Biennale, Busan, KR

2005

Day Labor, P.S.1 MoMA, New York City, US

Normalization, Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul, TR

2004

Common Property – Allgemeingut 6th Werkleitz Biennial, Halle, DE

Call me Istanbul, ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, DE

2003

4D: Four dimensions, Four decades – 8th Havana Biennial, Havana, CU

Poetic Justice: 8th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, TR

How Latitudes Become Forms: Art in a Global Age, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, US

Grants, residencies

2014-16

Radical Hospitality, AR/GE Kunst Galeries Museumm, Bolzano, IT

2008

Artist in Residence (IMP) at Platform Garanti, Istanbul, TR

International Studio Artist in Residence at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, GR

2007

International Artist Fellowship, production residency at Spike Island, Bristol, UK

2006

‘Artist-to-Artist’ Grant, Visiting Arts in partnership with The Henry Moore Foundation

Contemporary Projects (with British artist James Hutchinson)