Following profound institutional turbulence and administrative delays, the 18th Istanbul Biennial inaugurated its first phase from September 20 to November 23, 2025, under the poetic title The Three-Legged Cat. Curated by Lebanese curator Christine Tohmé, founding director of Ashkal Alwan in Beirut, this edition radically abandoned the standard two-month biennial spectacle, restructuring itself into a sustained three-year ecosystem spanning 2025 to 2027.
The overarching metaphor of the three-legged cat—an injured, limping creature that nonetheless survives, adapts, and navigates hostile urban topographies—served as an urgent allegorical figure for both Istanbul and contemporary cultural production in the region. The image speaks directly to trauma, endurance, and pragmatic resilience in the face of ongoing economic precarity, censorship anxieties, and geopolitical tremors.
In terms of figurative practice, Tohmé’s selection avoided monumental didacticism. Across venues scattered through Beyoğlu, Karaköy, and the Golden Horn, works presented the human body not as an idealized hero, but as a wounded, resilient, and adaptive organism: bodies carrying surgical sutures, communal bodies gathered in makeshift domestic kitchens, and hybrid physical forms negotiating urban displacement.
By spreading the biennial over three consecutive years, the Istanbul Biennial challenged the unsustainable frenzy of international art tourism. Rather than parachuting international art stars into Istanbul for a glamorous opening weekend before vanishing, Tohmé’s model prioritizes sustained community workshops, artist residencies, and publishing archives rooted deeply in local civic life.
The Three-Legged Cat proved that resilience in art is not measured by pristine institutional triumphs, but by the stubborn capacity of living bodies to keep walking, creating, and remembering despite their historical wounds.
Sources: İKSV Official Press Release (March 3, 2025 & September 15, 2025); Artforum (October 2025); The Art Newspaper (September 22, 2025).