Orhan Pamuk: Balkon

Description

In the winter of 2011 Nobel-Prize-winning Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk took 8,500 color photographs from his balcony with its panoramic view of Istanbul, the entrance of the Bosphorus, the old town, the Asian and European sides of the city, the surrounding hills, and the distant islands and mountains. Sometimes he would leave his writing desk and follow the movements of the boats as they passed in front of his apartment and sailed far away. As Pamuk obsessively created these images he felt his desire to do so was related to a strange particular mood he was experiencing. He photographed further and began to think about what was happening to himself: Why was he taking these photos? How are seeing and photography related? What is the affinity between writing and seeing? Why do we enjoy looking at landscapes and landscape photographs? Balkon presents almost 500 of these photos selected by Pamuk, who has also co-designed the book and written its introduction. 'There is genius in Pamuk's madness.' -Umberto Eco

Balkon, the Turkish word for balcony, is a mediation on the city where Pamuk was born in 1952. Taken over a five-month period beginning in late 2012, the 600 pictures of ancient monuments, wooded isles and cloud-laden skies only hint at the chaos of Istanbul, which has served as a central character in much of the novelist's work.--Ayla Jean Yackley "Art Newspaper" Balkon's images capture one of the central cruxes of Pamuk's work: a sustained interest in distances.--Kaya Genc "Art in America" Much like Atget in fin-de-siecle Paris, Pamuk channeled his flanerie into a documentary mission, creating an archive of his changing city. [...] But unlike Atget, Pamuk is no dispassionate observer. His images, like his novels, are suffused with the nostalgia of a longtime resident grappling with the new reality of an old, changing city. [...] Orange, then, also reads as a eulogy for the city that has defined Pamuk's writing.--Jonah Goldman Kay "Los Angeles Review of Books" The photographs, arranged often in a series of two to eight per page, convey an affective aura.--Erdag Goeknar "Los Angeles Review of Books"