Contemporary Istanbul eyes Asian side for second fair after 21st edition

Contemporary Istanbul is planning to cross the water.

Founder and board chairman Ali Güreli wants to launch a second fair on Istanbul's Asian side, adding a new stop in a city that already straddles Europe and Asia. The plan was reported by The Art Newspaper on 1 October 2026, just after the 21st edition closed.

That edition brought around 70 exhibitors, meaning galleries showing work for sale, from more than 15 countries to Tersane Istanbul, a 500-year-old Ottoman-era shipping yard on the Golden Horn inlet in Istanbul. It was the fair's third consecutive year at Tersane, this time in a new single-floor layout.

The footprint covered 6,000 sq.m. across two adjacent halls with nine-metre-high ceilings, plus a separate venue for Dialogues, the fair's talks programme. Big rooms matter. They decide what size of sculpture can travel and how crowds move.

International range was part of the pitch. Seventeen galleries joined for the first time, including Whitestone Gallery and Pearl Lam Projects from Hong Kong and Michel Rein and Galerie Vallois from Paris, according to The Art Newspaper.

The 70-gallery scale did not arrive out of nowhere. A year earlier Güreli had said he wanted to recruit more exhibitors from Asia and grow the fair to 70 galleries. The 21st edition hit that number.

What makes this stand out for visitors is geography. Few art markets let you gallery-hop across continents by ferry. A second fair on the Asian side would make that split formal.

Güreli also said his team is talking to Turkey's Ministry of Culture and Tourism about tax reform for art purchases, pointing to Italy's cut to 5% on art acquisitions as a model. No change has been announced. The fair has confirmed its own next date, with a return in 2027 in the same week as the 19th Istanbul Biennial, the city's large-scale contemporary art exhibition held every two years.

For context, Contemporary Istanbul began in 2006 and now operates among more than 350 art fairs worldwide. Its 2025 edition ran from 24 to 28 September 2025 at Tersane Istanbul. Its smaller and more focused sister event, CI Bloom, held its fifth edition in 2026.