Viola Yeşiltaç
Almost Ideal City
June 17 – August 14, 2026
Opening on Wednesday, June 17 from 6:00pm – 8:00pm
TenBerke is pleased to announce the opening on Wednesday, June 17 from 6:00pm – 8:00pm of
An Almost Ideal City, by Viola Yeşiltaç in our gallery space. The exhibition will be on view from June 17 – August 14, 2026, during our gallery hours Wednesday and Fridays from 11:00am – 5:00pm.
To visit the exhibition, please book an appointment at: Events@TenBerke.com
About the Exhibition
Viola Yeşiltaç’s photographic installation An Almost Ideal City (2026), presented at TenBerke Architects consists of over 40 black-and-white silver gelatin prints (8 × 10 inches) and two sculptures, bringing different urban contexts into dialogue.
Corners of buildings, streets, niches, parks, coasts, and high-rises are photographed across various geographical locations. While site-specific details such as palm trees, signage, or architectural elements remain visible, the images avoid clichéd representations. Instead, they form a layered, almost supra-geographical urban space in which places such as Cologne, Istanbul, or American cities merge. Through their arrangement at different heights, the photographs enter into relation with one another, intertwining temporalities and revealing shared urban conditions.
“In the 15th century, during the Renaissance, Francesco di Giorgio Martini painted an ideal city […]
The viewer’s gaze is directed, between columns and along two streets, toward the harbor where the ships lie. The Roman Cicero, however, tended rather toward Plato’s view. He praised the wisdom of King Romulus, the mythical founder of Rome, for establishing the capital of the Roman Empire not on the seacoast but on the Tiber, a river that allowed access both to the sea and to the interior. Cicero, together with Aristotle, does acknowledge maritime trade, which brings forth a diversity of goods, as well as the nautical knowledge by which one can withstand storms and the sea.
Yet even more strongly, with Plato, he emphasizes the dangers that the sea poses for a coastal city: at the sea one is far more exposed to surprise attacks by enemies than inland; the way of life of the citizens becomes unstable through the influence of foreigners with their different values; “and then the inhabitants of these cities do not remain attached to their homes, but are, as it were, carried away on the wings of hope and in their thoughts ever farther from home, and even if they remain physically settled, they wander in their imagination abroad.” The temptations of the abundant supply of goods encourage an overly lavish way of life that harms the commonwealth; “and even the beauty of the seascape entices one to indulge in many elaborate and idle fantasies.” Coastal cities such as Corinth and Carthage, he argues, declined because agriculture and defense were neglected in favor of seafaring and trade. It may seem surprising how critically the educated Cicero judges the longing for distant places awakened by the sea, given that he himself greatly loved gazing out over it.”
(English translation of the original)
(Günter Scholtz, Philosophie des Meeres, Mareverlag, Hamburg 2016, S. 50–51)
Original German text
„Im 15. Jahrhundert, in der Renaissance, malte Francesco di Giorgio Martini eine ideale Stadt […]
Der Blick des Betrachters wird mitten zwischen Säulen und zwei Straßenzügen hindurch zum Hafen gelenkt, in dem die Schiffe liegen. Der Römer Cicero allerdings neigte eher der Ansicht Platons zu. Er pries die Weisheit des Königs Romulus, des mythischen Gründers von Rom, weil er die Hauptstadt des Römischen Reiches nicht an der Meeresküste, sondern am Tiber entstehen ließ, an einem Fluss, der Zugang zum Meer wie zum Landesinneren ermöglichte. Zwar begrüßt Cicero mit Aristoteles den Seehandel, der eine Vielfalt von Gütern herbeischaffe, und auch das nautische Wissen, mit dem man Sturm und Meer trotzen könne.
Aber stärker noch hebt er mit Platon die Gefahren hervor, die das Meer für eine Küstenstadt bedeute: Man sei am Meer viel leichter den Überraschungsangriffen von Feinden ausgesetzt als im Binnenland; die Lebensweise der Bürger werde durch den Einfluss der Fremden mit ihren anderen Wertvorstellungen instabil; »und dann hängen auch die Bewohner dieser Städte nicht an ihren Wohnungen, sondern werden sozusagen auf den Flügeln der Hoffnung und in ihren Gedanken weiter von zu Hause fortgetragen, und auch wenn sie körperlich sesshaft bleiben, schweifen sie in ihrer Vorstellungswelt in der Fremde umher«. Die Verlockungen des reichen Warenangebots begünstigten eine allzu üppige Lebensweise, die dem
Gemeinwesen schade; »und schon die Schönheit der Meerlandschaft verführt dazu, vielen aufwendigen und zur Untätigkeit verführenden Wunschträumen nachzugehen«. Küstenstädte wie Korinth und Karthago seien untergegangen, weil man Landwirtschaft und Verteidigung zugunsten von Seefahrt und Handel vernachlässigt habe. Es mag erstaunen, wie kritisch der gebildete Cicero das vom Meer erweckte Fernweh beurteilt, da er doch selbst den Blick hinaus aufs Meer sehr liebte.”
(Günter Scholtz, Philosophie des Meeres, Mareverlag, Hamburg 2016, S. 50–51)
Press Release
And now, finally, tell me about Manet’s bouquets…
I was born some time ago in America to American parents, so to me everything in Europe has always seemed old. For a long time my internal categories of European architecture were simply- stuff that didn’t get blown up during WWII vs. stuff that was built after WWII. It wasn’t until I saw Menilmontant that I became visually aware of the difference between old European things and even older European things. In that case, between Napoleonic Parisian things and Medieval Parisian things.
You know how if you travel a meaningful distance in any direction you might find, on observation, that all of the details are just a little bit different? The street signs, the bricks, the stones that make the street, the grass, the stones in the grass, even the earth- everything is just so- and different than it is at home.
I read something once, I think, called “On Visiting Kafka’s Grave”, a personal essay by Helene Cixous…
It was nearly two decades ago, but the gist, as I remember it, is that our Hero goes to Prague to visit the grave of Franz Kafka, but once at the cemetery, finds herself unable to locate it. And from there things get sort of psychedelic. It becomes unclear whether she visited the cemetery or even Prague to begin with. But I recall that she claims Kafka’s headstone is blindingly white.
Years later in Athens, I visited the Acropolis on a suffocating summer afternoon, and found that with the marriage of such a cruelly uncompromising sun and a complete absence of shade, I couldn’t really see anything at all. The marble, even in its advanced age, was reflecting light, screamingly, here, there, and everywhere, and all at once. A meaningful direct address of any object here would be unlikely.
In that moment I thought of the Cixous. I smiled to myself at the absurdity of traveling such a great distance to regard these objects and finally, in the anticipated moment of physical proximity, of actualization, being neutered by the very environment that I had forced myself into. I mean who goes to Greece in August.
The thing is, I have never been able to find that Cixous essay on Kafka and his grave. I am certain that I read it, but I guess I may have made the whole thing up. And it’s not like I’m obsessed with the Frankfurt School or anything. I’m really not.
Do you live in a city and have a dog? One thing you might notice if you take three idle walks around the block every day is how fascinated your dog is in the creases of their built environment. Dogs really like the edge where the sidewalk ends and the buildings begin. Ground Zero for the urban x-y axis is of great interest to dogs. At least it was to my dog.
If a dog were to make art I wonder if that art might be a collection of photographs or drawings of favorite stones along their well-trodden path. Marking time sort of like Sisyphus, if Sisyphus found beauty in the comfort of knowing exactly what he had to do and where he had to be, all the time, and if that permitted him to appreciate details he might have otherwise ignored.
Maybe one day you’ll be strolling down a street in Cologne or someplace else and you’ll find yourself caught on some arbitrary architectural detail, snagged, just for a second. You might think,
That looks just like one of Viola’s pictures
And padding down that same street in the opposite direction might be some stoned tourist, and maybe he sees that same little nuance, is derailed by it just like you are, and maybe he is even thinking something that approximates what you’re thinking, at precisely the same time.
And hey, maybe that stoned tourist is me.
Luca Dellaverson
May 2026
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