Mapping Istanbul in the Depths of the Cistern: Alex Červený at Zeyrek Çinili Hamam

The Byzantine cistern beneath Zeyrek Çinili Hamam—a 16th-century masterpiece designed by Mimar Sinan—plays host to Brazilian artist Alex Červený’s first solo exhibition in Turkey. Running from September 24, 2026, to January 31, 2027, “Atlas of Encounters” (Karşılaşmalar Atlası), curated by Anam de Coster, illuminates the artist’s memories of Istanbul alongside the historical strata of the cistern through more than 30 works.

Pages Unfolding Among the Layers of the Cistern

The exhibition brings together oil paintings on canvas, a parchment sculpture, intervened historical engravings, and embroidered peştemal (traditional bath towel) installations. Arranged along the cistern’s stone architecture, Červený’s works unfold like the leaves of a book. The artist’s relationship with Istanbul traces back to his initial journey to the city in 2009. Found in an antiquarian bookstore that year, late 19th- and early 20th-century Ottoman Turkish and Persian astronomy treatises form the narrative backbone of the visual language now echoing against the cistern walls.

The Bosphorus, Astronomy, and Traces of Galley Slaves

Červený reinterprets historical modes of representation by inscribing his own drawings onto facsimiles of Istanbul engravings from Dutch traveler Cornelis de Bruyn’s Voyage Au Levant, held in his private collection. Accompanying new oil paintings that center on the Bosphorus are star charts—documents once crucial to maritime navigation and political decision-making in the Ottoman Empire. Meanwhile, ship drawings uncovered on the cistern walls during the hamam’s restoration, attributed to the galley slaves who built the structure, enter into a spontaneous dialogue with the artist’s calligraphic and symbolic lexicon.

Mythology, Calligraphy, and Oppositions

Born in São Paulo in 1963, Alex Červený moves fluidly between drawing, engraving, sculpture, and painting, drawing from a rich reservoir of references that ranges from medieval illuminated manuscripts and Renaissance votive paintings to surrealism and pop culture. Across different alphabets and mythological motifs, the artist translates fundamental dichotomies—life and death, body and mind, earth and sky—onto the canvas.