Cihangir Gümüstürkmen

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MACERA (2024) Acrylic on canvas ⎥ 200 x 160 cm

GAMSIZLAR (2024) Acrylic on canvas ⎥ 100 x 80 cm

KÖLENIM (2024) Acrylic, paper on canvas ⎥ 100 x 80 cm

CIVANIM (2024) Acrylic on canvas ⎥ 100 x 120 cm (sold)

AṢKIM (2024) Acrylic on canvas ⎥ 100 x 120 cm

MANOLYAM (2023) Oil, acrylic on canvas ⎥ 100 x 100 cm

ORKIDE (2023) Oil on canvas ⎥ 100 x 100 cm

TATLIM (2023) Acrylic on canvas ⎥ 70 x 100 cm

SEVDALIM (2023) Acrylic, mirror film on canvas ⎥ 70 x 100 cm (sold)

CILVELI (2023) Acrylic on canvas ⎥ 90 x 90 cm

INTIKAM (2023) Acrylic on canvas ⎥ 90 x 90 cm (sold)

KASIRGA FATMA (2023) Acrylic on canvas ⎥ 70 x 100 cm

Turkish Cinema

A journey through film history with its unforgettable stars

This series celebrates the legendary Yeşilçam era of Turkish film. Named after a street in Istanbul's Beyoğlu district, Yeşilçam was the center of the Turkish studio system between 1950 and 1990 — it is synonymous with mainstream Turkish film.

Cihangir Gümüştürkmen focuses on this golden film era, which is now widely regarded as the era of Turkish film classics. These films impressed Cihangir very much in the western-oriented city of İzmir of his childhood. The actress Hülya Koçyiğit inspired his childlike imagination as a surrogate mother because his real single mother lived as a guest worker in Berlin at that time, whom he could only see once or twice a year. Cihangir was fascinated not only by the romantic and melodramatic films, but also by the colourful film posters painted on large surfaces. In the Turkish Cinema series he recalls these memories, plays with the classic film couples and names, arranges them anew and projects them onto canvas in acrylic and oil.
For his painting of the transsexual singer and actress Bülent Ersoy, Cihangir paints photos from the ORKIDE album (1978). They show Bülent Ersoy as a very feminine person, but the singer and actress is still seen as a man who transformed himself into a woman from 1980 onwards.
The work MANOLYAM is a homage to Zeki Müren, probably the most famous and dazzling singer and actor of his time. Cihangir himself attended one of the singer’s live concerts in Izmir in 1974. “The sun of classical Turkish music,” as he is called in admiration by many Turks to this day, entered the stage dressed in a silver outfit consisting of 30 cm high platform boots, a mini dress and a feather headdress. This sight has had a lasting impact on the nine-year-old Cihangir and later artist.