Doug Aitken Naked city at Borusan Contemporary presents a selection of seven works of art from the period 2006 to 2024. The exhibition in Istanbul, curated by Jérôme Sans, focuses primarily on cities, with each work exploring the modern conditions and paradoxical isolation of today’s hyper-connected world.
Four years after the global outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, which brought the world to an unprecedented standstill, this exhibition explores humanity’s inherent propensity for mobility and its unfolding development in contemporary society. Between movement and immobility, extreme speed and slowness, connection and loneliness, the art on display is intended to explore how to navigate the urban, physical, digital and emotional landscapes of our time. Speaking of loneliness, erasure within the vast mass of sprawling megacities and the limitless digital ocean, the show aims to question the direction of humanity and respond to today’s new ways of communicating, connecting, perceiving and being.
After its debut 17 years ago outside the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where it covered the building’s exterior walls with projections, Borusan Contemporary now shows Aitken’s works sleepwalkers (2007) for the first time in an interior setting.
Installed at the entrance of the institution, Ascending stairs (2024), a permanent work commissioned by the Borusan Contemporary Art Collection, leads visitors to the gallery spaces where windows (2007), 3 modern figures (don’t forget to breathe) (2018), “Digital Detox” (2020), “Flags and Debris” (2021), and don’t think twice II (2006), Aitken’s work from the Borusan Contemporary Art Collection, are exhibited in a setting that creates a journey through the building’s architecture.
Located in the historic building in Istanbul known as the Haunted House, Borusan contemporary is dedicated to contemporary art and offers a multi-platform program of exhibitions, events and educational activities based on the Borusan Contemporary Art Collection. Since 2011, the institution has promoted the production of new works of art and publications through commissions and purchases.
Visit for more information borusancontemporary.com.
