With the exhibition Dream and Reality - Modern and Contemporary Women Artists from Turkey, which will last from September 16, 2011 to January 22, 2012, Istanbul Modern aims to put on the agenda Turkey’s social and cultural transformation via the work of women artists. Centered on the position of women artists in modern and contemporary art, the show offers a new, alternative perspective on the sociocultural history of Turkey.

Curated by Fatmagul Berktay, Levent Cal?koglu, Zeynep Inankur, and Burcu Pelvanoglu, the selection encompasses the works of women artists stretching from the early 1900s to our day and incorporates diverse disciplines ranging from painting to video.

The exhibition connects 74 artists, including pioneering female artists the lives and productions about whom we know little and whose names are almost forgotten; the rediscovered moderns; and women artists who for the last four decades have been shaping the contemporary art scene with their intellectual attitude and practical actions.

Centered on the work produced by women artists for more than a century, the exhibition reminds us of the artists’ pioneering position in the history of art while aiming to render visible their reckoning with Turkey’s sociocultural dynamics and especially their critical position in contemporary art.