By Heidi Trautmann
Exactly one year ago I wrote the following in Cyprus
Observer:….The art scene during the months of July and August in Cyprus is very
quiet. Nothing can be reported, all exhibition venues are left entirely to the
tourists such as the Eaved House, Bellapais Crypt, etc. Artists go on holidays,
visit cooler places in Europe, we should have advised them to take winter
cloths with them, and perhaps go to ….NO, it is not any cooler in Europe this
year! In last night’s weather report they announced 38 to 40°….at least for Bavaria
where I come from. The other day I called a Cypriot artist friend on his mobile
and he answered, my dear, I am in Munich and it’s boiling hot…They all go and
see art and culture while here is nothing to report, even the sand sculpture
competition at the beach of Famagusta is over.
Schools are closed, traffic is less, which is the one positive thing
about it, I can get out of my side road within 5 minutes instead of ten,
miracles happen.
Or, my artist friends have joined one or the other art
event abroad themselves what they have been doing more and more often in the
last years. It has become common practice for our local artists to join
International Art Colonies….like Feridun Isıman, Hasan Zeybek and Inandim
Nilüfer, they are in Kicevo Macedonia, not for the first time. It is a special
experience to spend some weeks among like-minded, to work and share, and to
talk the same language, the language of art. There are many similar places all
over Europe, but we don’t have any in Cyprus.
I played with the idea of doing a an art tour myself –
it’s only a dream don’t worry – and looked
up important art exhibitions in Europe in the internet and this I found
besides the big national ones:
In Tate Liverpool; Chagall June 16 to 30Oct 201; ‘Witches
and Wicked Bodies’ in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art July-Nov2013;
Portrait of Vienne: Klimt, Schiele, Oskar
Kokoschka in Sainsbury; or for example the 13th Istanbul Biennale
from 4 September to 10 November 2013; the Biennale in Venice 1 June – 24 Nov
2013; Art Expo in Malaysia Oct-Nov 2013, the Beijing Contemporary Art Show
2013; the Shanghai Art Fair Nov 14-17,
2013.
Does that not make your mouth water?
When you want to know something more intimate about a
country you are coming through, you should visit its art museums and National
Galleries, because there you will find the local artists with their view of the
country. In North Cyprus there is no such museum. And I am sure that travelers
coming here would love to know about the country.
So, we will have to patient and wait for our artists
to return and I hope that our readers will wait patiently with us when I can
restart writing my reviews on artistic, music and literary events.