Vasif Kortun (born November 6, 1958) is a curator, writer and educator in the field of contemporary art, its institutions, and exhibition practices.
Writing about the inauguration of SALT in 2011, writer Kaelen Wilson-Goldie describes Kortun as "an unabashed power broker on the Istanbul scene.
Kortun resigned from his position at SALT in April 2017 and organized a public talk where he presented his paper "Questions on Institutions" (Kurum Soruları).
"[9] Kortun speaks about Feshane as an eye opener as it was a major site for Turkey's process of modernization:[10] It was built as one of the most advanced textile factories in the late 19th century, to be abandoned in 1986 for environmental improvements.
Memory/Recollection was organized in 1991 at Taksim Art Gallery (Taksim Sanat Galerisi), and Number Fifty/Memory/Recollection II (Elli Numara: Anı/Bellek II) was presented in 1993 in Akaretler, Istanbul, where "politics displaced art"[11] as the participating artists and he decided to prematurely close the exhibition after the banner of the show was replaced with a Democrat Party poster.
He also curated the Pavilion of Turkey at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007) with a solo exhibition of artist Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin as well as the United Arab Emirates Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011) with a group exhibition titled Second Time Around including artists Reem Al Ghaith, Abdullah Al Saadi, and Sheikha Lateefa bent Maktoum.
In 2004, he co-authored the book Jahresring 51: Szene Turkei: Abseits aber Tor with Erden Kosova, focusing on the art scene in Turkey.
[22] The resignation was the result of a controversy around artistic freedom of expression, which was related to the 2015 exhibition The Beast and the Sovereign at MACBA whose then director Bartomeu Marí also served as the CIMAM President.
"We believe that art museums engaged with contemporary issues should be sites for the free exchange of ideas, where legal debate about and dissension from government policy or majority social opinion are allowed and encouraged," their joint statement read.