Anna Laudel Istanbul is proud to present “Through Woven Times”, the retrospective exhibition of globally acclaimed contemporary textile artist Belkıs Balpınar, on view from March 6 to April 27, 2025. The exhibition will be accompanied by the launch of a comprehensive monograph exploring the artist’s career.
Balpınar developed an experimental weaving technique by merging the traditional kilim weaving (flat-weaving) method with contemporary art. Bringing together works from all periods of Balpınar’s career, “Through Woven Times” highlights her artistic practice and legacy spanning from 1986 to the present, showcasing her pioneering aesthetic revolution.
The exhibition “Through Woven Times” also emphasizes Balpınar’s pioneering, investigative, and creative identity, as she introduces both formal and theoretical innovations to textile art through her expertise and deep knowledge of colors, symbolic motifs, and weaving techniques. The artist liberates kilim weaving, one of the oldest art forms of Anatolian culture, from its traditional forms, expanding it in terms of time, space, dimension, and depth.
The distinctive artist’s innovative weaving techniques that create new dimensions, come together in a single exhibition. With extraordinary creativity, Balpınar intentionally leaves certain parts of her works unwoven during the weaving process. These unwoven threads elevate her designs from a two-dimensional plane into the third and even fourth dimensions. Inspired by Albert Einstein’s concept of the fourth dimension—a realm where time and speed exist beyond human perception—Balpınar expresses the cosmos through spiraling forms in varying dimensions within her sculptural weavings. She distills the forms, movements, and orbits inherent in the complexity of the universe, nature, and human biology into their simplest essence. Her experimental transformations that blend carpet and kilim weaving techniques, define Balpınar’s unique artistic language.
Through Woven Times
Anna Laudel Istanbul is delighted to announce the publication of “Belkıs Balpınar: Through Woven Times”, a monographic book accompanying Balpınar’s retrospective exhibition, published by SKIRA, one of the world’s leading art publishers based in Italy. Representing a significant authority in the global art scene for nearly a century, SKIRA is a prominent publishing house with 250 titles available in English, French, Italian, and Arabic.
Balpınar’s works, along with her books and articles on kilim weaving, have been exhibited alongside some of the most distinguished figures in both Turkey and the international art scene. The book that will be presented alongside leading names in the global art world, marks a significant milestone in her artistic career.
The book “Belkıs Balpınar: Through Woven Times”, published by SKIRA, is edited by Dr. Necmi Sönmez, one of the most prominent researchers, art writers, and critics in the Turkish art world. Under Sönmez’s editorial guidance, the book delves into Balpınar’s practice, which transforms the traditional kilim weaving technique into a modern visual language, enriched with extensive visual content. Dr. Necmi Sönmez co-authored the book with Dr. Sabine Maria Schmidt, a specialist in art history, musicology, and German language and literature based in Germany and Spain. Schmidt is known for editing group and monographic catalogs featuring prominent artists from various countries, as well as her regular contributions to art magazines and newspapers. The book also features a comprehensive chronology of the artist’s life and work, written by Zeynep Eray.
The “Through Woven Times” retrospective exhibition, featuring works from private collections, will be on view from March 6 to April 27, 2025, at Anna Laudel Istanbul.