Solar Plexus Istanbul Sessions
Solar Plexus Istanbul Sessions is the title of an album released by the half-Swedish, half-Turkish jazz musi- cian Ilhan Ersahin in 2018 and to which he invited leading musicians such as Erik Truffaz, Ibrahim Maalouf and Dave Harrington to play with him. Solar Plexus is also the title of an exhibition held by Contretype which brings together photographs by the four artists Thomas CHABLE, Alexandre CHRISTIAENS, François GOFFIN and Philippe HERBET... like a free jazz improvisation where everyone does their own thing while also endeavouring to reflect the others.
These four are part of the history of Contretype, their works have been hosted here several times in recent years. Solar Plexus was created from a deep love they all share for Istanbul. But there is no commission, no group trip, no shared theme, no reportage and no tourism! Just the idea of juxtaposing, (or) blending, their singular gaze and observing how their infatuation for the city and their photographic eye combine.
All four of them share a taste for travel, a physical as well as a mental journey during which they seek to be captivated by landscapes that encourage their curiosity, stimulate their emotions and challenge an eye that is ready to capture new or perhaps blunted sensations. Istanbul was able to combine all these quali- ties for them.
One has been going to Istanbul for almost 35 years and has since anchored his affections there, another devours it greedily every time he returns since he discovered it in 1994, the third has fallen in love with its location at the junction of two seas and has dreamed of settling there, and the fourth has even rewritten his biography there since it is his birthplace as a photographer.
Constantinople, Byzantium, Istanbul... behind each of these names lies a history that has marked the culture of its time. As a meeting point between Europe and Asia, Istanbul has never ceased to fire the ima- gination and haunt memories since Antiquity.
Greek and then Roman, Constantine founded an empire there, the Orthodox Christians made it their spi- ritual capital and the Ottomans of Suleiman the Magnificent the seat of their sovereignty over the world. Overthrown by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and finally turned into a Turkish city, it has relinquished its title of capital but continues to glow like a glowing ember. Ships cross the Bosphorus, passing the Golden Horn, between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara. Caravans passed beneath the Sublime Porte before en- tering the Topkapi Palace, Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque keep alive the glitter of the Islam of yeste- ryear.
Finally, from Pera to Beyoglu and Dolmabahçe, the sirens of an exoticism and Orientalism fantasised by a Western modernity concerned with its imperialism ring out. Today, Istanbul continues to disseminate the images, sounds and words of writers. In its reality as a cosmopolitan Western metropolis, a hybrid between East and West, neither really one nor the other but where each stands on the threshold of the other, it seems to play with time, holding back time in its history while at the same time being a regular spectacle of traffic on the maritime routes. All of this will be conveyed at Contretype, an imaginary kaleidoscope of landscapes and human beings.
The Solar Plexus exhibition arose like a desire to jam, between four virtuoso «photographer-musicians»,
to reflect this city that belongs to nobody but where nobody is a stranger, they agree. Each of them impro- vises, with their choice of materials, lights and the constant processions of elusive people from Istanbul.
This exhibition, planned just before the health crisis and then postponed for many months, feels like a taste of the improvisation that is taking place today.
Translation: Louise Jablonowska