Detail of Hale Tenger, I Know People Like This III, 2013
Hale Tenger (b.1960, Izmir, Turkey) is primarily known for her large scale installations based on an elaborate combination of unconventional use of materials, audio, and video. Her wide range of production is inspired by diverse historical, political and psychosocial references. Presence and experience is a key element in her installations whether they create meditative atmospheres or uncanny ones. State power and violence, oppression and repressed aspects of both society and self are questioned throughout her works that operate with the qualities of mood, sound, texture and affect. The audience inevitably oscillates between one visualized situation and another sensed one: between what we can see and what we can hear and feel. Audio is integrated into most of her works in various forms, either as an exclusive music, as a narrative or an arrangement of archival recordings.
Detail of Hale Tenger, Appearance, 2019
Select solo exhibitions include: Where the Winds Rest, Galeri Nev Istanbul, Turkey (2019); Beirut, Rizzuto Gallery, Palermo, Italy (2018); We didn't go outside; we were always on the outside/ We didn’t go inside; we were always on the inside, Protocinema, New York (2015); Perspectives: Beirut, Smithsonian Institute, Washington (2011); Balloons on the Sea, Green Art Gallery, Dubai (2011); Never Never Land, Mannheimer Kuntsverein, Mannheim (2001); and The Closet, ArtPace, San Antonio, Texas (1997).
Tenger has also participated in various biennials including the Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art, Russia (2021); Istanbul Biennial (1992, 1995, 2019); São Paulo Biennial (1994); Manifesta 1, Rotterdam (1996); 2nd Johannesburg Biennial (1998); Gwangju Biennial (2000); 8th Havana Biennial (2003); 1st Haifa Mediterranean Biennial (2010); and the 57th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia (2017), curated by Christine Macel.
She lives and works in Istanbul.
Hale Tenger and Kostis Velonis, two prominent contemporary artists from Turkey and Greece, engage in an indirect dialogue on the traces of life and death in the exhibition True Love Leaves No Traces.
Hale Tenger on the Lessepsian migration, “tampering with” nature and the concept of “wu wei.”
Nermin Saybaşılı’nın kaleminden Hale Tenger’in “Altında," "Hayat, Ölüm, Aşk ve Adalet” ile “Suret, Zuhur, Tezahür” başlıklı üç farklı sesli yerleştirmesinde karşımıza çıkan kadın sesinin yankısı üzerine…
Turkey's veteran artist Hale Tenger tackles coups, destruction and political assassinations in the Middle East, using marriage of poetry and images.
A review of the works presented on the 16th Istanbul Biennial by Gökcan Demirkazik.
A review of the works presented on the 16th Istanbul Biennial.
While a glut of artists tackle climate change, work elsewhere in the city dares to confront Turkey’s political regime directly.
Alexandra Chaves review Hale Tenger's mixed media installation Under.
Hanna S. Orlowski interviews Hale Tenger on her latest pubic commission, Under, commissioned by Alserkal Programming and guest curated by Mari Spirito.
HG Masters reflects on Hale Tenger's career over the last 20 years in the July/August issue of Art Asia Pacific.
Hale Tenger’s 1995 installation We didn’t go outside; we were always on the outside / We didn’t go inside; we were always on the inside, a commentary on Turkish politics in particular and state repression in general, is as disturbingly relevant today as it was 20 years ago.
Ari Akkermans reviews Hale Tenger's work We didn’t go outside; we were always on the outside/ We didn’t go inside; we were always on the inside at Protocinema, New York.
A review of Hale Tenger's We didn't go outside; we were always on the outside/ We didn’t go inside; we were always on the inside installation.
Arie Amaya-Akkermans talks about works of Hale Tenger in the context of the events of Gezi Park, Istanbul that took place in 2013.
Arie Amaya-Akkermans talks about Hale Tenger’s video work “Beirut” (2005-2007).
H.G. Masters and Nazli Gurlek survey this art scene’s recent past, and consider what the future might hold in the wake of the Gezi Park protests, a contentious edition of the biennial and little state support.
HG Masters talks about Hale Tenger’s installation Where the Winds Rest (2007) in ArtAsiaPacific issue 86.
A review of Hale Tenger’s installation I Know People Like This III presented first in the group exhibition of contemporary Turkish art Envy, Enmity, Embarrassment at ARTER Istanbul in January 2013.
A review of Hale Tenger's exhibition Balloons on the Sea, 2011 at Green Art Gallery, Dubai.
An in-depth article by Deborah Root in which she discusses Hale Tenger's various installation pieces, including Strange Fruit (2009) shown at Galeri Nev, Istanbul.
Nermin Saybasili discusses the way in which both sound, and particularly voice, becomes another "object" within Hale Tenger's installations and another "element" in her video-works.
Irina Cios interviews Hale Tenger about the artist's position in the Turkish contemporary art scene, and her ability to break the traditional pictorial fixation of Turkish art.
According to Ahu Antmen, Turkish artists are intrinsically post- modern, and the schizophrenia of this neither/nor situation, this dual existence in a space both modern and traditional, so old but so open to the new, bears a forest of inspiration.
Stuart Morgan discusses the themes of migration found in many of the works at the 1996 Manifesta.
Gregory Volk discusses the what he believes was an innovative fourth Istanbul Biennial with eclectic works and installations predominating over other genres.
