ROBERT MONTGOMERY SOLO EXHIBITION

ISTANBUL’74 welcomes Robert Montgomery, one of the leading
voices in contemporary art, back to Istanbul with his new
solo exhibition, JAMES BALDWIN’S BALCONY IN ISTANBUL
and OTHER WORKS. Opening on 23 September 2026 at
ISTANBUL’74 Arnavutköy, the exhibition marks a new chapter
in the artist’s representation by ISTANBUL’74, which spans more
than a decade.
Internationally recognised for bringing poetic language into public
and intimate spaces through billboards, lightworks, paintings,
woodcuts and watercolours, Montgomery has developed a
distinctive practice that shifts the boundaries between text and
visual art. His work has been presented at institutions including
the Louvre Museum in Paris, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Aspen
Art Museum, Oklahoma Contemporary, PODO Museum in South

Korea and CerModern, as well as at the Lyon Biennale, Kochi-
Muziris Biennale and Yinchuan Biennale.

At the heart of the exhibition are three significant new paintings
from Montgomery’s Poets in the Cities series. The first painting
in the series was recently presented at Charleston, the historic
home of the Bloomsbury Group in England. The exhibition at
ISTANBUL’74 marks the first presentation of this new series
outside the United Kingdom. The paintings bring James Baldwin
and Edip Cansever into the company of other writers and
musicians, constructing imagined encounters across cities,
histories and generations.
Alongside the paintings, new lightworks expand Montgomery’s
ongoing exploration of language, memory and the city. Together,
the works offer a new perspective on his longstanding relationship
with Istanbul, shaped by distance, longing and return, and
reconnect poetry with shared, everyday space.