Press release Events

at the WILLY-BRANDT-HAUS

The Freundeskreis Willy-Brandt-Haus e.V. presents the photo exhibition

Ara Güler – The eye of Istanbul
Retrospective from 1952 to 2013
Opening on Wednesday, 15th October 2014 at 19.30 clock

Probably the most famous Turkish photographer Ara Güler (born 1928), traveled around the world with his Leica. But his passion has always been his home city of Istanbul. He dedicated a unique tribute to the city at the Bosphorus.

Like no other, he has captured street life, bustle of the city and the everyday life of the inhabitants since the fifties. His photographs are filled with impressions of enchanted villas, overgrown gardens, melancholy alleys, shops and the maze of streets; of the traffic of drays, busses and taxis. He describes closely the atmospheric symphony of a city of houses, bridges, ships and clouds that directs the view from the narrowness of the streets into distance.

Ara Güler began as an autodidact, but he was soon internationally in great demand as a photographer. He met Henri Cartier-Bresson due to Marc Riboud in Paris in the mid 50s and entered the circles of the picture agency Magnum. As a Middle East correspondent, he traveled for international magazines such as Time-Life, Paris Match and Stern go. He also portrayed celebrities including Brigitte Bardot, Maria Callas, Winston Churchill, Indira Gandhi, Alfred Hitchcock, Pablo Picasso.

In the course of half of a century Ara Güler has received numerous awards and honors. In the Museum of Modern Art in New York he belonged to the "ten masters of Color photography" already in 1968. He was awarded in Turkey as photographer of the century and honorably characterized as documentarist of truth and visual historian. But the best honoring description for him is: The Eye of Istanbul.

The exhibition will be shown parallel to the 25th anniversary of Istanbul’s and Berlin’s city partnership at the Willy-Brandt-Haus.


Exhibition from 16th October 2014 to 15th January 2015

Tuesday to Sunday from 12 to 18 clock | free admission | ID required

The exhibition will be closed from 24 to 26.12., As well as on 31.12.2014 and 01.01.2015


Freundeskreis Willy-Brandt-Haus e.V.
Manager, artistic Director Gisela Kayser | T 030 25 99 37 85

Press informationen Ela Papen | T 030 25 99 37 87 | F 030 25 99 37 88

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