Nil Yalter
Solo Exhibition
8 November 2024 - 31 January 2025
Green On Red Gallery is delighted to announce Nil Yalter’s first solo exhibition in Ireland.
Nil Yalter was born in Cairo, Egypt, in 1938. She has spent most of her life between her native Turkey and Paris. Widely appraised as the first Turkish female video artist, Yalter’s work is partly defined by the perspective of being a female immigrant. Throughout her career, Yalter has created an extensive body of work that seeks to shed light on cultural identity, ethnicity, immigration and feminism. Characterised by her use of tools such as photography, video, drawing, interactive media and text, her work challenges conventional historical narratives and pushes the boundaries of storytelling in contemporary art.
Originally a painter and educated at Robert College in Istanbul, Nil Yalter first moved to Paris in 1965 where she lives and works still. Immersed in circles of counter-artworld activists and feminists throughout her youth, Yalter is considered the author of the first interactive art work from Turkey and a pioneer of the French feminist art movement of the 1970s.
Her work has been exhibited and celebrated worldwide by major institutions and biennali. ( Also in November '24 see : https://www.ntmofa.gov.tw/en/News_Content.aspx?n=1618&s=226137 ) It gives a platform to marginalised communities such as immigrant workers, female labourers and former prisoners.
For a lifetime of original and groundbreaking art Nil Yalter has been awarded this year the Venice Biannale Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement Award.
Exile is a hard job is currently centre stage in Room 1 of the Gardini's Central Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2024. The Venice Biennale closes on Sunday 24th of November 2024. ( See : https://www.labiennale.org/en/art/2024/nucleo-contemporaneo/nil-yalter )
Come and see the exhibition at the Green On Red Gallery, from May 16th to July 5th 2024. You can find us at Park Lane, Spencer Dock, North Wall, Dublin 1.
Nil Yalter Circular rituals 1992 Wall text and video with sound
Nil Yalter’s Circular Rituals (1992) is a one-minute video installation with wall-printed text. Created for the Trans-Voices: French and American Artists Address a Changing World Order project, organised by the American Center in Paris, the Whitney Museum and the Public Art Fund. Her work was displayed at these institutions, broadcast on Canal+ and MTV and shown on posters in the Paris and New York subways—bringing her message and imagery into public spaces.
Using imagery from a feminist demonstration in Algeria and scenes from Turkish immigrant labour in Paris’s Sentier district, Yalter connects the lives of individuals facing economic hardship and cultural upheaval with broader themes of identity and resistance.
Yalter uses footage she recorded in a Parisian sewing workshop, adding overlays that equate “ work ” with “ death, ” exposing the harsh conditions endured by Turkish immigrants in Paris. We see the physical toll and isolation of immigrant labour and at the same time the resilience of these workers.
Nil Yalter La Femme sans Tête/ Danse du Ventre 1974 Video
La Femme sans Tête/ Danse du Ventre ( 1974 ) is a video performance in which Nil Yalter interweaves cultural symbolism and feminist critique, turning a traditional belly dance into a profound exploration of body autonomy and the cultural control exerted over female sexuality. The piece was made possible by Dany Bloch, who lent Yalter the then-innovative Portapak camera for two days as part of the first major exhibition of video art, “Art, Video and Confrontation”, held at the ARC 2 ( Animation, Recherche, Confrontation ) of the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in late 1974.
Filmed by Joël Boutteville, Yalter herself performs with her head out of the frame, dancing to gypsy music and inscribing anthropologist René Nelli’s text on her bare belly in a spiral from her navel outward. This text, drawn from Nelli’s Erotique et Civilisations, reflects on female sexual pleasure, the clitoris and its repression by patriarchal culture. Yalter reads and repeats the text as she writes, using both voice and body to counter the cultural silencing and physical control that women have long endured. As her body moves, the lines of text twist and flow, drawing the viewer into a cyclical rhythm that symbolically “ exorcises ” patriarchal restrictions on female sexuality. Yalter wears a self-made skirt inscribed with hand-written text, further emphasising the layered meaning within the performance.
Yalter wrote text directly onto her skin, drawing inspiration from a ritual described by anthropologist Bernard Dupaigne, practised in parts of Africa and Anatolia, where verses of the Quran were written on the stomachs of " disobedient " or infertile women to ensure fertility and obedience. Yalter critiques this tradition by transforming it into a feminist statement. Her use of the belly dance, originating from the Middle East and historically misinterpreted as erotic by outsiders, further reclaims cultural expression, repositioning it as a critique of sexual oppression rather than an inducement to desire.
Through La Femme sans Tête/ Danse du Ventre, Yalter highlights the intersection of cultural and gendered experience, using the medium of video to convey both personal and social critique. This pioneering work situates her at the early intersection of video art and feminist performance and it was a precursor to her later multimedia and socio-critical projects that blend art with anthropology and sociology.
Nil Yalter Tower of Babel / Tour de Beaubourg 1974-77/2016
Nil Yalter’s Tower of Babel / Tour de Beaubourg (1979) is a mixed-media installation exploring themes of language, identity and cultural dislocation, drawing direct inspiration from the biblical story of Babel. In this myth, humankind’s attempt to build a tower to reach heaven was thwarted by God, who fragmented their shared language into many tongues, leading to misunderstanding and disconnection. This narrative, which has influenced countless artworks, speaks to the complex realities of communication, cultural pride, and alienation—a central focus of Yalter’s work.
Yalter first explored this theme in a performance on August 3, 1977, at the Caldas da Rainha contemporary art festival in Portugal. She created a wall installation with two rows of photocopies of drawings of the Pompidou Centre’s escalator on brown paper, alongside imagery symbolising Babel, and a text quoting the dictionary definition of Babel: “Tower of Babel. A gigantic construction, a jumble of objects, a bold conception or undertaking.” In 1978, she expanded this concept into a 25-minute black-and-white video titled Babel, later exhibited at the 15th São Paulo Biennial in 1979. This video draws parallels between the mythological Babel and Paris’s Centre Georges Pompidou (Beaubourg), depicting generations of cultural accumulation and non-communication, accompanied by a soundscape of multiple languages. Yalter critiques how diverse cultures and people intersect but often fail to truly communicate, using film of the Centre’s escalator as a metaphor for this layered fragmentation.
Tower of Babel / Tour de Beaubourg (1979) was later included in Artista 2, a 1979 Pompidou Centre publication featuring commissions from contemporary artists. Yalter’s contribution featured a stylised drawing of the Pompidou building alongside a pyramid, accompanied by probing questions about official art, subtly transforming the Centre into an Egyptian pyramid. Additionally, she included a photograph of herself in a waitress’s uniform, humorously “serving” the institution’s logo on a plate, symbolising the ways artists often find themselves in service to institutional structures. A text in the work invokes Babylonian symbolism, questioning the role of art and the architectures of power in society.
In a 2016 presentation at FRAC Lorraine in Metz, Tower of Babel evolved once more, with videos featuring interviews of immigrants from diverse backgrounds, set in a circular arrangement to create a “concert of languages.” This immersive setup invited viewers into a space where the voices of immigrants surround them, symbolising the persistence of cultural displacement and questioning the structures of power that perpetuate these divides. This piece connected back to Yalter’s long-standing engagement with immigrant communities, including Turkish garment workers in Paris’s Faubourg Saint-Denis, whom she documented in her earlier project, C’est un dur métier que l’exil (1983).
With the digitization of her tapes in 2012, Yalter began revisiting and reworking these videos, often combining excerpts from multiple projects under the title Immigrants, allowing new audiences to experience these voices. This ongoing process, where earlier works are continually revisited and updated, underlines Yalter’s commitment to addressing the changing realities of migration, language and cultural identity, positioning her work as a living archive that challenges power dynamics and institutionalised narratives through both visual and auditory experiences.
Nil Yalter Hommage a Marquis de Sade 1989 Video installation Edition of 5 13'22mins
Nil Yalter’s Hommage au Marquis de Sade (1989), is a deeply personal video piece exploring sexuality, liberation and identity, blending themes of personal freedom with critiques of power and morality. Commissioned by the Musée du Havre for the bicentennial of the French Revolution, this work reinterprets the Marquis de Sade, aligning his ideas of radical freedom with revolutionary ideals. In creating this piece, Yalter chose to shift her usual focus on Turkish writers to engage with classic French literature, acknowledging her dual French and Turkish nationality.
Originally titled Rien n’est à moi, rien n’est de moi, the piece began as an installation at the Musée du Prieuré in Graville, later shown in a single-channel, twelve-minute version. It features six monitors set on black bases, each showing close-ups of the artist’s own arms wrapped around her knees, overlaid with digital geometric forms. These digitally generated shapes, described by Yalter as a “constructivist virus,” disrupt the organic forms, blending abstraction with figuration. The geometric overlays recall the early days of computer-generated imagery and create a visual dialogue with industrial architecture, another recurring theme in Yalter’s work.
The video incorporates phrases from Sade’s La Philosophie dans le boudoir, with lines like “Nothing is part of me, nothing is mine” and “Virtue and vice are indistinguishable in the sacred.” For Yalter, these ideas captured the sense of liberation she felt when first reading Sade in her twenties. The piece combines digital imagery with traditional art forms; pencil drawings in a constructivist style depict bodies and geometric elements alongside quotations from Sade’s writing, connecting themes of sexuality, morality and the nature of freedom. One collage, inspired by Kazimir Malevich, reconfigures body parts like breasts, thighs and arms into abstract shapes, evoking Sade’s ideas through a minimalist, geometric aesthetic.
Hommage au Marquis de Sade emerged during a reflective period for Yalter, who at the same time created Pyramis, ou le voyage d’Eudore, a project revisiting her birthplace in Egypt. These works represent a more personal shift in her art, focused on self-discovery and identity rather than purely political themes. This period helped shape Yalter’s later recognition in the 2010s, as audiences reconnected with her unique contributions to feminist and liberation-focused art. In Hommage au Marquis de Sade, Yalter invites viewers to confront ideas of personal freedom and transgression, blending literature, imagery and her own experiences.
Further information on Nil Yalter
https://www.ft.com/content/7fd98a7a-d7df-462a-aed2-7e8fef710954
https://www.labiennale.org/en/art/2024/nucleo-contemporaneo/nil-yalter
https://www.artbasel.com/stories/premiere-artist-talk-nil-yalter?lang=en
https://www.artforum.com/events/nil-yalter-210311/
https://awarewomenartists.com/en/magazine/nil-yalter-des-images-et-des-mots-pour-dire-les-maux/