Berlin, Germany Jun 2, 2026 (Issuewire.com) - BERLIN, Germany, June 2026 — Berlin-based photographer and curator Burak Bulut Yildirim has announced The Nudes of Istanbul, a group exhibition and accompanying English-language hardcover photobook opening at Die Akt Galerie Berlin from 3 to 19 July 2026.
The exhibition presents a fourteen-year Istanbul-based fine-art nude photography practice through works by fourteen photographers selected from a sustained curator-directed studio practice. Five of the participating photographers are women. The accompanying publication includes photographs, a foreword and extended curatorial essay by Yildirim, and texts by three model-authors writing from inside the practice: Zeynep Renda, Su Yesil and Marmelat.
The project was developed from photographic work made in Istanbul over fourteen years. It focuses on the photographed body through real models, real light, constructed sets, physical materials, model presence and explicit consent. The exhibition is not presented as a national survey or a general exhibition about Turkey. It is a public record of a long-term collective photographic practice brought into public view in Berlin.
The participating photographers are Adem Tayfun Eser, Burak Ozcan, Ibrahim Cem Ozoral, Didem Ergezer, Enis Onur, Mehmet Akif Yalin, Mehmet Naci Demirkol, Mertkan Hergul, Meryem Aydin, Neslihan Bilginer, Nevra Topalismailoglu, Ozan Dengiz, Selda Bal Cosar and Umut Altun.
“For fourteen years, this project developed through real studio work in Istanbul, with models, photographers, light, materials and explicit permission,” said Burak Bulut Yildirim, curator of The Nudes of Istanbul. “The book was important because the models should not remain silent subjects. Their voices are part of the project.”
The English-language hardcover photobook is conceived as an autonomous publication rather than a standard exhibition catalogue. It brings together the fourteen photographers, five women participants, three model-authors, a historical framing of body-based photography in Turkey and six categories of the photographed body: Surface, Matter, Opacity, Rooms, Duration and Self-Possession.
The model-author texts form a central part of the publication. Zeynep Renda writes from inside a long modelling practice, addressing trust, boundaries, contracts and professional working conditions. Su Yesil writes through the body as lived experience, touching on family reaction, shame, gendered norms, body dysphoria, movement, nature and performance. Marmelat, writing under a chosen pseudonym, addresses the rarely documented subject of academic modelling labour within a fine arts faculty in Turkey.
The exhibition also responds to the current circulation of AI-generated and synthetic body imagery by insisting on photography as a camera-based artistic act. No exhibition image is AI-generated, and AI training or synthetic-image use is excluded from the project’s written rights and consent framework.
The Nudes of Istanbul will be shown at Die Akt Galerie, Krossener Str. 34, 10245 Berlin, Germany, from 3 to 19 July 2026. The opening takes place on Friday, 3 July 2026 at 19:00. Gallery hours are Friday to Sunday, 15:00 to 19:00. Admission is free.
More information is available at https://burakbulut.org/the-nudes-of-istanbul
Media Contact
Burak Bulut YILDIRIM info@burakbulut.info https://burakbulut.org
