Labour of Love

Galerist marks its twenty-fifth anniversary with Labour of Love (Gönül İşi), a group exhibition. It runs in the gallery's rooms at Passage Petits-Champs in Istanbul from 16 September to 7 November 2026. Nearly fifty artists take part, among them Semiha Berksoy, Sarkis, Nil Yalter, Ayşe Erkmen, Taner Ceylan and Youssef Nabil. The show gathers painting, photography, sculpture, video, installation and drawing, with older pieces from the gallery's past set beside new works.

Galerist frames the show around self-portraiture, offering each work as a self-portrait of its maker's practice. On the gallery's reading, a recurring shape, material, gesture or way of making can stand for an artist as well as a face. Several works are portraits in the usual sense. Taner Ceylan shows two oil portraits of himself from 2002. Nabil shows Hope to Die in My Sleep, Self Portrait Vinales (2005), a hand coloured gelatin silver print. Ayşe Erkmen's Typed Words Nr.23 Self-portrait (1997/2008) is a typewriter painting. Semiha Berksoy's Death Due to Love (1998) is oil on hardboard. Sarkis joins oil on paper with stained glass, gold leaf and LED light in 85 Screams: After Munch, 1962 #25 (2014 to 2023). Nil Yalter's video Skin Story II runs from 2003 to 2026.

Several works date from 2026. Hera Büyüktaşcıyan's Meadow is made of tile, bronze and wood, and Ali Emir Tapan's Self-Portrait in 3 Peony Petals is fourteen carat gold. Burcu Yağcıoğlu's Self-portrait as a Guardian T Cell is a round work on paper. Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Elif Uras and Hussein Chalayan also take part, alongside Thomas Ruff, Erwin Wurm, Michael Craig-Martin and Julian Opie.

No curator is named; the gallery credits an exhibition team. In Galerist's reading, the title refers to the care and conviction that go unseen in making art and in sustaining long relationships. It applies the same idea to the gallery, which took years of work with artists, collectors and audiences to build. Founded in 2001, the gallery has held about 200 exhibitions and showed Nabil alone in 2009. The rooms move between white walls, deep red walls and bare historic plaster, and a title wall lists every artist.