Turkish Cultural Diplomacy: Ara Güler Photography Exhibit in NY Inaugurated by President Erdoğan: Video Included

The Güler exhibition first debuted in London in April 2019 at the Saatchi Gallery, then went to the Polka Gallery in Paris in May, and the Tofukuji Temple of Kyoto, Japan, in July during the G20 summit, before coming to New York. Further planned sites for the exhibition include the Trastevere Museum of Rome in January 2020 and the Turkish Embassy in Mogadishu, Somalia, in May 2020.

At the event, multiple copies of an exhibition catalog entitled simply Ara Güler, published by the Ara Güler Archives and Research Center and the Ara Güler Museum, and presented by the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey, were available.

The bilingual Turkish and English hardcover catalog opens to a photograph of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey taken by Güler facing a letter bearing Erdoğan’s signature. The latter praises Güler as a photographer, and declares, “Ara Güler, with his photographs published by prominent press agencies and publications, contributed immensely to the promotion of Turkey. The late Ara Güler’s albums and exhibitions, which include his photographs that constituted the headline or cover photos of many newspapers and periodicals, attracted attention in many great cities of the world.” The brochure distributed specifically for the New York exhibition contains the same letter by Erdoğan.

Güler’s Armenian Background

The New York exhibit, the book and brochure all provide a brief biography of Güler. His Armenian background can only be inferred indirectly from two brief allusions: his graduation from the “Getronagan Armenian high school” in Istanbul and the publication of some of his stories as a young man in Armenian newspapers.  (See https://mirrorspectator.com/2018/10/22/turkish-officials-honor-ara-guler-while-reluctant-to-mention-his-armenian-heritage/)

Not one word was spoken about Güler’s Armenian background by the speakers at the New York event. In contrast with this deliberate avoidance of Güler’s ethnic background, some of Güler’s most famous photos were of Armenian subjects, such as those of the aforementioned Kumkapı fishermen first published in the Istanbul Armenian newspaper Jamanak [Zhamanag] in the 1950s. One of these photos is reproduced in the current exhibition, as is a photograph of Armenian-American writer William Saroyan.

Güler’s given name at birth in 1928 was Mıgırdiç [Mgrdich] Ara Derderyan, but his father Dacat, a pharmacist, and mother Vercin, were forced to change the family name as a result of the Surname Law of 1934. His father Dacat was born in Shabin Karahissar (Şebinkarahisar) in 1896 and came to Istanbul with his mother as a 6-year-old for school. The rest of his family, deported during the Armenian Genocide, were killed or lost.

Ara Güler avoided speaking publicly about the oppression that Armenians living in Turkey, including his family, experienced. However, he did once tell Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk that his father had to leave his home and hide for months in a different house, never once going outside, to avoid the discriminatory “Wealth Tax” of 1942 and possible relocation to a forced labor camp for failure to pay this tax. Güler also witnessed and photographed the pogroms of September 6-7, 1955 in Istanbul (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/opinion/orhan-pamuk-ara-guler-istanbul.html).

As Turkish journalist Ozan Ceyhun wrote in Daily Sabah, a media sponsor of the exhibition, on September 25, “Güler obviously has a very important place in cultural diplomacy that is successfully being conducted by the country’s presidency. Turkey’s values are shared with the world’s public opinion in this program where Turkey’s foremost artists are embraced and their projects put in the spotlight. The Turkish president’s Chief Adviser Fecir Alptekin is responsible for this along with her team, and Ara Güler exhibitions are allowing many residents in various cities of the world to have a taste of this artist’s works, of whom Turkey is proud of.”

Making works of photography more accessible to the world is praiseworthy, but omitting an important dimension of the photographer while using his work out of context for political purposes is not.