BEDRİ BAYKAM
b. Ankara-Türkiye, 1957
Bedri Baykam is one of Türkiye's internationally most well-known artists and intellectuals.
From age six until today, he has had exhibitions in Bern, Geneva, New York, Washington, Paris, London, Rome, Munich, Frankfurt, Stockholm, San Francisco, Monaco, Cannes, Berlin, Sydney and Los Angeles, to name a few.
Bedri Baykam is the son of politician Dr. Suphi Baykam and engineer-architect Mutahhar Baykam. He studied at Sorbonne University in Paris from 1975 to 1980 and earned an MBA. During this time, he also studied drama in L'Actorat, Paris. He lived in California from 1980-1987, studying painting and filmmaking at the California College of Arts and Crafts (CCAC, now CCA) in Oakland. He has had several shows in New York, California, and Paris. He returned to Türkiye in 1987 and has been living in İstanbul since.
He has had 151 solo shows and participated in numerous group shows. His works have been shown in museums and institutes such as Akademie der Künste (Berlin), Picasso Museum (Barcelona), Roland-Garros Museum (Paris), Pinacothèque de Paris (Paris), Stedelijk Schiedam Museum (Holland), Museum der Moderne (Salzburg), Osthaus-Museum Hagen (Germany), Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin), Bahrain National Museum (Bahrain), Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen (Düsseldorf), National Academy of Arts of Ukraine (Ukraine) and in Biennales such as Cairo, Venice, İstanbul and Buenos Aires; he also showed his works at galleries worldwide, such as Daniel Templon (Paris), Stephen Wirtz (San Francisco), Yahşi Baraz (İstanbul), The Proposition (New York), Gallery Siyah Beyaz (Ankara), E.M. Donahue (New York), Galerie Kuchling (Berlin), Lavignes-Bastille (Paris), Galerie Pages (Geneva), Opera Gallery (London), Gloria Delson Contemporary Arts (Los Angeles) among others.
Baykam is one of the pioneers of New Expressionism in the early 80s and of multi-media political art. He has directed several 16 mm films and videos and has acted in several parts of feature films. He is the author of 32 published books and two feature film scripts, and there are 61 catalogs and nine books about his works. Baykam also became one of the graffiti artists who changed the face of New York in the 80s. Bringing the large-scale works, politics, and eroticism that he has standardized since the 80s to our contemporary art scene, the artist has started to produce "4D" four-dimensional works that have attracted significant attention all over the world as an extension of his transparent layers series with digital imagery and all sorts of transparencies about which he has been working on for the past two decades.
He is the co-founder and actual President of Uluslararası Plastik Sanatlar Derneği (UPSD-Türkiye Plastic Arts Association), a member of the International Association of Art (IAA) - an official partner of UNESCO. In 2011, Baykam's proposal to start a World Art Day on the birthday of Leonardo da Vinci during the 17th General Assembly of IAA World in Guadalajara/Mexico was accepted unanimously by the participating countries. Since then, every year, a growing number of artists' associations in numerous countries are celebrating "World Art Day," with several art forms harmoniously blending. In 2019, UNESCO accepted the proposal brought by Baykam as World President of IAA, and World Art Day became one of the International UNESCO Days. Bedri Baykam was elected as the World President at the 18th General Assembly of the International Association of Art (AIAP/IAA), the official partner of UNESCO held in Pilsen, Czech Republic, in 2015, and served in this position for seven and a half years, handed over the Presidency to South Korean Kwang Soo Lee in the 19th Extraordinary General Assembly of AIAP/IAA held in İstanbul in 2023 and Baykam became the President Honoraire of IAA..
Also, Baykam has been a columnist for several Türk publications in the past, such as Tempo, Siyah-Beyaz, Aydınlık, Akşam, and OdaTv, among others. He has been writing in Cumhuriyet daily for long years. He is one of the central characters of the artistic and political milieu in Türkiye. He was a Party Assembly Member of CHP (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi), the Türk social democrats, in the second half of the 90s and a Presidential candidate for the same Party in 2003.
Baykam is the author of 32 books and two feature-length screenplays. Baykam still writes for Cumhuriyet Newspaper.
The artist founded Piramid Publishing (1998) and Piramid Sanat (art center, 2006) in Taksim Square in Istanbul, one of the most active and independent spots in contemporary art. He has also curated several group exhibitions.
Baykam mainly lives and works in İstanbul; he is married to journalist and writer Sibel Baykam, and they have a son, Suphi Baykam (born in 1999).
