Manuel Çıtak: An Island of One’s Own

Istanbul Modern presents “Manuel Çıtak: An Island of One’s Own” in its Photography Gallery from 5 November 2026 to 23 May 2027. The solo exhibition surveys the photographer Manuel Çıtak (1962 to 2023), who was born in Malatya and worked in Istanbul. It gathers black-and-white and colour photographs made between the 1980s, when he took up the camera, and his death in 2023. Coastal scenes, cityscapes, panoramas, portraits and pictures taken in Anatolia and nearby countries make it the first show of his whole career. Demet Yıldız Dinçer is the curator, working with Naz Uğurlu Benek, Tamar Çıtak and Selen Erkal.

Çıtak photographed people in the city, at its edges and in the countryside. His black-and-white coastal pictures are among his familiar work, above all the Kilyos series he pursued from the 1990s into the mid-2000s. The daily newspaper Radikal printed the first of them in 1996. The museum’s image for the show is a detail of Kilyos Beach (2000), from the series By the Shore, in which crowds of swimmers fill the surf. He also made the documentary series Madenciler (1994) and the Kardelenler (Snowdrops) project of 2000. The show includes his panoramic photographs, a format few photographers used at the time.

He was introduced to photography while a graphic design student at the Istanbul State Fine Arts Academy. A photo-reportage on the Armenian community brought him notice in 1990. He shot for magazines including Cornucopia, Skylife and National Geographic. Travelling with Orhan Pamuk to Kars, he took pictures that later appeared on international editions of the novel Snow (2002). His only solo show during his lifetime, islomania, opened at Depo, Istanbul, in 2022, with colour island landscapes. He took part in the 9th Istanbul Biennial (2005) with the Hafriyat Collective and in People Attract People at Istanbul Modern (2016). The museum’s photography collection holds his silver gelatine print Mount Nemrut (2002).

His wife, the writer Şebnem İşigüzel, describes his photographic world as one made in voluntary solitude, his own island. A catalogue in Turkish and English accompanies the exhibition, and her essay in it shares the show’s title. It also carries a framing essay by Dinçer, a text by Orhan Cem Çetin, and a conversation between the curator, İşigüzel and the photographer’s daughter, Tamar Çıtak.