During Istanbul Art Week, Whitewall gathered friends, collectors, artists, and members of the international creative community at Aliée Istanbul to celebrate the launch of its Fall Issue and, more broadly, the energy of a city increasingly at the center of the international art conversation.
Set within Tersane Istanbul, the historic imperial shipyard on the Golden Horn, Aliée provided a fitting setting for the evening. The hotel’s dialogue between heritage and contemporary design mirrors something essential to Istanbul itself: a city where history and modernity constantly meet, and where different cultures, disciplines, and perspectives have always crossed paths.
The celebration took place in the hotel’s Pink Room, an intimate and characterful space that quickly filled with familiar faces and new encounters. Guests gathered over drinks and conversation, moving between discussions about the exhibitions and discoveries of Art Week and the broader conversations that bring Whitewall’s community together, from contemporary art and collecting to architecture, design, fashion, and hospitality.
The People Behind the Fall Issue
Courtesy of Aliée Istanbul and Whitewall.
Courtesy of Aliée Istanbul and Whitewall.
For Whitewall, the evening was also an opportunity to celebrate the people behind the Fall Issue. The magazine has always been less interested in separating creative disciplines than in exploring the relationships between them, and the gathering reflected that spirit. Artists met collectors, designers exchanged ideas with architects, and friends from different corners of the creative world came together around a shared curiosity for what is happening in Istanbul and beyond.
There was something particularly natural about celebrating in Istanbul. The city has long been shaped by exchange, and its contemporary art scene reflects that same openness. During Art Week, galleries, institutions, artists, collectors, and international visitors converge across the city, creating an atmosphere that feels both intensely local and unmistakably global.
Into the Night
Courtesy of Aliée Istanbul and Whitewall.
Courtesy of Aliée Istanbul and Whitewall.
As the evening at Aliée drew to a close, the night was far from over. Guests continued on to Mondaine, where the gathering transformed into a late-night celebration. Conversations continued, the music took over, and the more formal rhythm of the evening gave way to something looser and more spontaneous, friends old and new sharing the final hours of Istanbul Art Week together.
It was, ultimately, a celebration not simply of a new issue, but of the community that surrounds Whitewall and of the encounters that make Art Week so compelling. In a city defined by movement and exchange, the evening at Aliée and later at Mondaine, felt like a natural extension of what Istanbul does best: bringing people together, and allowing the night to take its own course.
Courtesy of Aliée Istanbul and Whitewall.
Courtesy of Aliée Istanbul and Whitewall.
Courtesy of Aliée Istanbul and Whitewall.
Courtesy of Aliée Istanbul and Whitewall.
Courtesy of Aliée Istanbul and Whitewall.
Courtesy of Aliée Istanbul and Whitewall.
Courtesy of Aliée Istanbul and Whitewall.
Courtesy of Aliée Istanbul and Whitewall.
