ON THE THEME OF MIGRATION IN CONTEMPORARY ART, ITS REPRESENTATION AND CONTRADICTIONS

Abstract

This article aims to discuss the impact of migration and the refugee crisis on contemporary art through selected examples from recent years. Artists who had to leave their countries due to war, economic injustice and ecological disasters affect and transform contemporary art production and the arts and cultural institutions with their artworks. With its political and social impacts, migration theme is addressed in contemporary art through the artists who migrated for various reasons or the artists who themselves witnessed migration. These artists become agents of Western institutions, but there is also a risk of instrumentalization of their artworks within art institutions and art markets. Issues that developed countries turn a blind eye such as human rights violations and violence against refugees and migrants, attract attention in the arts and culture scene as a contribution to multiculturalism through artworks. In this article, how migration is reflected in contemporary art, the problems of its representation in art and its contradictions, and how political debates about artworks in migration theme form a new publicness are examined with the examples from 2016 and 2017, at the time migration was on the agenda of the world and the EU as the civil war escalated in Syria.