Works
Biography
Widely considered a pioneer feminist video artist in Europe, Nil Yalter seeks to give a platform to socially marginalized groups through her work, such as immigrant workers, female labourers or former prisoners. The question of exile is almost a permanent feature of her research, and brings together a number of issues, including the conditions of exiled families, particularly women. Her practice is research-based, involving both artistic and sociological research using tools such as photography, video, drawing, interactive media and text to question the grand historical narratives.
Nil Yalter’s works emerge from pressing political and social situations. Language plays an important role for her, along with cultural influences from Central Asia, the Middle East, Turkey, and Western Europe. Using a quasi-anthropological methodology, she reflects the living conditions and voices of marginalized communities of people, shedding a critical light on to the wider society. Since the 1970s, her work consistently challenges grand historical narratives through the subjective experience, and pushes the boundaries of both storytelling and abstraction in contemporary art.
Born in Cairo, Egypt, Nil Yalter has spent most of her life between Turkey and Paris.
As a pantomime artist, from 1956 to 1958 Nil Yalter traveled to Iran, Pakistan, and India. From 1963 to 1964 she worked as a stage designer and costume designer at various theaters in Istanbul and increasingly concentrated on painting. In 1965 she moved to Paris, where she lives and works to this day. She had her first solo exhibition in 1973 at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. With a focus on ethnological and sociological questions, the artist examined the position of women in nomadic tribes in Turkmenistan. To accompany her most widely exhibited work “Topak Ev”, a specially reconstructed tent, she created wall panels with drawings and copies of photos and texts that reflect the lives of the nomads. With her feminist video work “The Headless Woman or the Belly Dance”, in 1974 she participated in the first international video art exhibition in France and emerged as a pioneer of video performance.
In recent years Nil Yalter participated in itinerant survey exhibitions such as “Wack! Art and the Feminist Revolution” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and MoMA PS1 in New York (2007-2008); “elles@centrepompidou” at Centre Pompidou Paris; Centro Cultural Banco de Brazil, Rio de Janeiro; Seattle Art Museum (2013-2014) and “Desire for Freedom” (Deutsches Historisches Museum Berlin, Palazzo Reale, Milano, Eesti Kunstimuuseum – Kumu Kunstimuuseum, Tallinn, Muzeum Sztuki Wspólczesnej MOCAK, Krakau (2012-2013). Other solo exhibitions followed at venues including Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2019), MAC VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine (2019), WIELS, Brussels (2017), FRAC Lorraine in Metz (2016) and Arter – Space for Art in Istanbul (2016).
Nil Yalter has participated at important international exhibitions such as the 15th Sharjah Biennial (2023), 12th Berlin Biennale (2022), 10th Gwangju Biennale (2014), the 13th Istanbul Biennale (2013), 10th Paris Biennale (1977), besides exhibiting internationally in institutions, such as Kadist Art Foundation, Mumbai; Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro; Museum Boijimans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; MAC VAL, Paris; and Museum Ludwig Cologne. Works by Yalter are in many notable public collections, including Museum of Modern Art New York, Tate Modern, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, Istanbul Modern, Istanbul and Museum Ludwig, Cologne.
In 2023 Nil Yalter was awarded the Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement Award by the Venice Biennale.
Press
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Financial Times
Nil Yalter: ‘They said my work wasn’t art, it was politics. Now everyone appreciates it’October 12, 2024 -
StirWorld
Nil Yalter wins the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice BiennaleApril 30, 2024 -
Mousse Magazine
I Come from All of These Places: Nil YalterApril 15, 2024 -
Frieze
Nil Yalter's Epic PoetryApril 1, 2019 -
Artforum
Close-up: Change of SubjectApril 1, 2017 -
Lapaz International Art Magazine
Frontier Between Art and RealityDecember 1, 1989 -
Le Quotidien de l'Art
THE PILL, l'express Istanbul-ParisJade Pillaudin
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