The Case of Outgoing Autocrats: Public Art, Alliance Structures, and Far-Right Military Violence in Turkey

In The Case of Outgoing Autocrats: Public Art, Alliance Structures, and Far-Right Military Violence in Turkey, artist Hande Sever explores the figure of Kenan Evren—painter, self-appointed art critic, former president of Turkey, and leader of the 1980 military coup—alongside the strategic deployment of visual culture as a means of historical revisionism during the Cold War. This lecture performance emerges from a broader body of research tracing the systematic erasure of public artworks under Evren’s presidency during the coup, which is on view in Sever’s concurrent exhibition. Focusing on the cultural infrastructure reshaped by Evren’s regime, Sever examines how his dismantling and reconstruction of institutions for contemporary art have transformed Turkey’s cultural landscape. Drawing from a constellation of archival fragments—audio recordings, photographs, state documents, and literary texts—she reexamines histories of repression, censorship, and resistance. 

Following the lecture performance, Sever will be in dialogue with Suzy Halajian, Executive Director and Curator of JOAN and Co-founder of Georgia Journal, and Talia Heiman, REDCAT Assistant Curator. 

This program is part of the exhibition Hande Sever: Take off your eyes