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As the Istanbul Biennial dominates the city’s conversation, you might crave a quieter refuge: Try EArt Gallery in Kagithane, where Ergin Inan’s six-decade retrospective unfolds in serene, luminous layers. Also on our radar: a glassware homage to ceramic pioneer Fureya Koral, a string of fresh gallery openings from Nisantasi to Beyoglu and some scary numbers on the winter of our discontent.

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Nazlan (@NazlanEr on X)

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1. Leading the week: Between Time and Traces

Ergin Inan, with his recent works (Courtesy of EArt Gallery)

If the biennial buzz feels like too much chatter, detour to Kagithane, where EArt Gallery hosts “Between Time and Traces: Ergin Inan 1964-2025,” curated by Marcus Graf. The show spans six decades of one of Turkey’s most inventive minds, tracing his journey from Malatya to Munich and back to his sunlit studio in Urla, near Izmir.

Described by Inan himself as a “mini-retrospective,” the exhibition unfolds in six chronological sections, gathering drawings, gravures, paintings and collages alongside the artist’s writings and photographs.

Born in 1943, Inan studied at the Istanbul State Academy of Applied Fine Arts before heading to Germany in the early 1970s, where Bauhaus precision met Anatolian mysticism. His early portraits from the 1960s probed the human face as an emotional landscape. By the 1970s, insects, which became his signature in paintings, began to creep into his canvases, accompanied by Byzantine halos, Ottoman calligraphy and Quranic manuscripts. Long before “cross-cultural” became a buzzword, Inan fused these influences into a luminous visual language, inspiring generations of art students as he taught at Marmara University.

A scene from the exhibition (Courtesy of Eart Gallery)

His paintings at the exhibition shimmer with Sufi undertones, Kafkaesque unease and modernist discipline — a blend so distinct it earned........

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