NIL YALTER

Widely considered a pioneer feminist video artist in Europe, Nil Yalter seeks to give a platform to socially marginalized groups through her work, such as immigrant workers, female labourers or former prisoners. The question of exile is almost a permanent feature of her research, and brings together a number of issues, including the conditions of exiled families, particularly women. Her practice is research-based, involving both artistic and sociological research using tools such as photography, video, drawing, interactive media and text to question the grand historical narratives.  

Nil Yal­ter’s works emerge from pressing po­lit­i­cal and social si­t­u­a­tions. Lan­guage plays an im­por­tant role for her, along with cul­tu­r­al in­flu­ences from Central Asia, the Mid­dle East, Turkey, and West­ern Eu­rope. Us­ing a quasi-an­thro­po­log­i­cal metho­d­ol­o­gy, she re­flects the living conditions and voices of margi­nal­ized communities of peo­ple, shedding a critical light on to the wider society. Since the 1970s, her work consistently challenges grand historical narratives through the subjective experience, and pushes the boundaries of both storytelling and abstraction in contemporary art. 

Born in Cairo, Egypt, Nil Yalter has spent most of her life between Turkey and Paris.

As a pan­tomime artist, from 1956 to 1958 Nil Yal­ter trav­eled to Iran, Pak­is­tan, and In­dia. From 1963 to 1964 she worked as a stage de­sign­er and cos­tume de­sign­er at vari­ous the­aters in Is­tan­bul and in­creas­ing­ly con­cen­trat­ed on paint­ing. In 1965 she moved to Paris, where she lives and works to this day. She had her first so­lo ex­hi­bi­tion in 1973 at the Musée d’Art Mod­erne de la Ville de Paris. With a fo­cus on eth­no­log­i­cal and so­ci­o­log­i­cal ques­tions, the artist ex­amined the po­si­tion of wo­m­en in no­madic tribes in Turk­menis­tan. To ac­com­pany her most widely exhibited work “To­pak Ev”, a spe­cial­ly re­con­struct­ed tent, she cre­at­ed wall pan­els with draw­ings and ­copies of pho­tos and texts that re­flect the lives of the no­mads. With her femi­n­ist video work “The Head­less Wo­m­an or the Bel­ly Dance”, in 1974 she par­ti­ci­pat­ed in the first in­ter­na­tio­n­al video art ex­hi­bi­tion in France and emerged as a pi­oneer of video per­for­mance.

In recent years Nil Yalter participated in itinerant survey ex­hi­bi­tions such as “Wack! Art and the Femi­n­ist Rev­o­lu­tion” at the Mu­se­um of Con­tem­po­rary Art in Los An­ge­les and Mo­MA PS1 in New York (2007-2008); “elles@centrepompidou” at Centre Pompidou Paris; Centro Cultural Banco de Brazil, Rio de Janeiro; Seattle Art Museum (2013-2014) and “Desire for Freedom” (Deutsches Historisches Museum Berlin, Palazzo Reale, Milano, Eesti Kunstimuuseum – Kumu Kunstimuuseum, Tallinn, Muzeum Sztuki Wspólczesnej MOCAK, Krakau (2012-2013). Other so­lo ex­hi­bi­tions fol­lowed at venues in­clud­ing Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2019), MAC VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine (2019), WIELS, Brussels (2017), FRAC Lor­raine in Metz (2016) and Arter – Space for Art in Is­tan­bul (2016).

Nil Yalter has participated at important international exhibitions such as the 15th Sharjah Biennial (2023), 12th Berlin Biennale (2022), 10th Gwangju Biennale (2014), the 13th Istanbul Biennale (2013), 10th Paris Biennale (1977), besides exhibiting internationally in institutions, such as Kadist Art Foundation, Mumbai; Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro; Museum Boijimans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; MAC VAL, Paris; and Museum Ludwig Cologne. Works by Yalter are in many notable public collections, including Museum of Modern Art New York, Tate Modern, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, Istanbul Modern, Istanbul and Museum Ludwig, Cologne. 

In 2023 Nil Yalter was awarded the Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement Award by the Venice Biennale.