Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation Pera Museum is set to welcome the autumn season with the exhibition titled Calculations and Coincidences: Algorithmic Art from the Central Bank of Hungary Collection, featuring works by three pioneers of algorithmic and computer art: Dóra Maurer, Vera Molnár, and Gizella Rákóczy. Accompanying the events taking place within the scope of the 2024 Hungarian-Turkish Cultural Year, the exhibition focuses primarily on the profound influence of Molnár, who was unquestionably among the most significant names in computer art, while tracing how the artistic explorations of Maurer and Rákóczy have expanded the boundaries of abstraction through the integration of computers, algorithms, and mathematics. Opening on September 19, the exhibition will welcome visitors until January 26, 2025.
Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation Pera Museum is preparing to bring art enthusiasts together with a magnificent exhibition in September. As part of the 2024 Hungarian-Turkish Cultural Year, the museum will present the exhibition titled Calculations and Coincidences: Algorithmic Art from the Central Bank of Hungary Collection, featuring a selection of works by three pioneers of algorithmic art: Dóra Maurer, Vera Molnár, and Gizella Rákóczy.
The works of three pioneering artists together
Opening on September 19, the exhibition focuses primarily on the profound influence of Molnár, who was unquestionably among the most significant names in computer art, while tracing how the artistic explorations of Maurer and Rákóczy have expanded the boundaries of abstraction through the integration of computers, algorithms, and mathematics. Calculations and Coincidences also offers an opportunity to witness how Molnár, Maurer and Rákóczy have collectively shaped the landscape of algorithmic art and abstraction.
They brought together science and art
Vera Molnár, who passed away last year at the age of 99, began working with computers as early as 1968 and utilized them as a generative tool to create paintings and graphic art, which broadened the frontiers of both science and art. Algorithmic randomness plays a crucial role in her work; order and disorder, structure, and freedom provide important notions in understanding her artistic practice. In Dóra Maurer’s works there is a strong tendency to systematize; since the early 1970s, Maurer has been exploring the forms and tools of mathematics - which create pure, exact constructions - and of music. Maurer’s work can be characterized by counting and transforming disordered sets into ordered ones.
One of the leading figures in geometric art, Gizella Rákóczy, who passed away in 2015, investigated the behavior and serial possibilities of four-arm spirals using combinatorics from 1976 onwards. Her watercolor drawings, in which she began to layer the tonal shades of transparent paint using the formula of the Fibonacci series reflect Rákóczy’s consistent, systematic, and structure-oriented attitude.
Accompanying the 2024 Hungarian-Turkish Cultural Year and aiming to strengthen the cultural ties between the two countries, Calculations and Coincidences, realized in collaboration with the Central Bank of Hungary, will be on display at Pera Museum until January 26, 2025.
Pera Museum is open from 10:00 to 19:00 Tuesday through Saturday, and from 12:00 to 18:00 on Sundays. Admission to Pera Museum is free of charge every Friday from 18.00 to 22.00 during “Long Friday” and for students every Wednesday as part of “Young Wednesday”.
As part of the Chamber Talks programme by the Istanbul Research Institute, the talk titled The Cultivated Eye: From Arif Hikmet’s Lens to Architectural Practice brought together M. Baha Tanman and Müjde Dila Gümüş to examine Arif Hikmet Koyunoğlu’s photography archive and architectural work, offering new perspectives on the exhibition The Photography Studio of an Adventurous Architect.
Pera Museum is hosting guided tours for Feelings in Common, led by curator Ulya Soley. The Guided Exhibition Tour with Curator will take place at Pera Museum on December 24, 2025 at 18:00 and December 27, 2025 at 15:00. The tour will be conducted in Turkish. Capacity is limited; tickets are available via Biletix or at the Pera Museum reception desk on the day of the event.
At the 9th Major Community Gathering, the Suna’nın Kızları communities came together to review the past year’s outcomes and align on project plans for 2026. Participants explored new ideas and collaboration opportunities on how the model and programs co-developed with 33 civil society organizations over the past four years can further support and reinforce one another.