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The exhibition “hattizar” by artist Muhammet Mag has opened at UYA Art Gallery in Uskudar, a district on Istanbul's Asian side.
Featuring 48 works, the show interprets traditional calligraphy through contemporary art approaches and is the first exhibition at the newly opened gallery.
The exhibition combines the formal features of calligraphy with lettrism, a movement that emerged in Western art and centers on letters.
The works appear on circular, square and rectangular canvases as well as on cube forms. Mag uses different calligraphic scripts and presents phrases taken from sacred texts in contemporary forms.
Mag told Anadolu Agency that the exhibition began with the idea of bringing traditional artistic understanding together with a new mode of expression.
He said influencing other societies comes not from imitating them but from preserving one’s own values while developing a shared and original expressive language.
According to Mag, the geometric forms draw on calligraphy's mathematical structure. “Calligraphy also has a mathematics made up of horizontal, vertical, circular and square shapes,” he said. “There, I actually turned the letter into a shape.”
Mag, who received academic training in addition to classical calligraphy education, said he aimed to make these linear forms visible to new generations and to people around the world in shapes that do not conflict with the belief system.
Gallery founder Ali Aksakal said the goal was not only to create an exhibition space but to carry calligraphy into other living spaces.
Aksakal said the exhibition merges Western lettrism with hurufiyya, a tradition of letter-based art in Anatolian civilization.
He described the show as built on a philosophy “tied to the past but not dependent on it.”
The works include verses, hadiths, and maxims, and use different textures and techniques, including three-dimensional designs.
A 1.5-meter (4.9-foot) diameter piece featuring Surah At-Takathur (“Tekasur Suresi”), the 102nd chapter of the Quran, stands out, according to Aksakal. It took about 47 to 50 days to complete.
The exhibition is open for one month. The gallery plans to host classical calligraphy as well as contemporary painting and letter-focused works by different artists later.
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