Mehtap Baydu: Loving You Is So Hard!

Arter in Istanbul presents Loving You Is So Hard!, a solo exhibition by the Turkish artist Mehtap Baydu, from 29 April to 15 November 2026. Shown in Gallery 1 under the Turkish title Seni Sevmek Çok Zor!, it is curated by Selen Ansen. Sculptures in bronze, ceramics, glass, paper and fabric stand alongside photographs and videos of Baydu's performances. Some were made for this exhibition and the others are recent. Arter shows them with documents and what it calls the "performative traces" of their making, and describes the show as her first solo exhibition at a Turkish institution.

The show includes Breath (Atem), a durational performance first staged in 2019 in a Kreuzberg shopfront for the 4th Berliner Herbstsalon. Baydu blows into a vinyl balloon sized to the exact volume of the room, and keeps breathing into it until it crowds her out. Arter is the first art institution to host it. It ran on and off for some twenty days from the opening, watched through a glass partition. The next room shows the video Mehtap, 2011, and UP IN THE AIR!, 2026, a Jesmonite cast of a raised fist. The room's walls are lined with the floral fabric of Kıyafet (Clothing), 2015.

Casting from the body runs through the show. Wirbelsäule (Spinal Column), 2026, stacks Jesmonite casts of the artist's head, torso, arms, legs, back and shoulders into one vertical column. Arter links it to the Roman spolia in the walls of Ankara Castle, which Baydu knew as a sculpture student in the city. Exchanging Skin with a Tree, 2025 to 2026, was made while Baydu was resident at The Watermill Center, New York, in 2025. Moulds of tree bark, a bronze branch and leaf-like porcelain forms cast from her elbows, chest and shoulders lie across the floor. Distortion, a video filmed at the same centre with sound by Robert Lippok, has its first showing here.

A Time Wall gathers works from 2007 to 2026 in niches, with photographs and videos of performances. The Artist's Own Bridal Shoes, 2007, sits in a glass jar. Osman, 2010, shows the artist as her male alter ego, who refers to the Turkish guest workers of the 1960s. The curator suggests transformation, in-betweenness and otherness as ways into the show. Born in Bingöl, Baydu trained as a sculptor at Hacettepe University, Ankara, and then at Kunsthochschule Kassel. She lives in Berlin.