I’m happy to report that in my knockin’ ’round Istanbul for the last few days I finally found some meaning. What does that mean? When serendipity strikes best, it’s an unexpected confluence of signs pointing in more the one direction, but in the same sorta way – if you know what I mean? Which can’t be true, because I don’t either. Maybe it’s like, “I know what I like” and “I like what I know”? (Nuthin’ from nuthin’ means sumpthin’?) No…!

Restart. ML’s book club read something by Orhan Pamuk, a Turkish writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006. I’d never heard of the guy, but in doing some research discovered that there was a Museum of Innocence here in Istanbul, made to manifest his novel of the same name. How cool is that?

So, after going to a rather famous library cafe on the Asian side for a coffee (rather appropriate), I went to check it out. As a lover and perpetrator of collage/montage/assemblage, I was blown away.

Each diorama display case of miscellaneous (innocent?) objects represented a chapter from the book (which I’ll now have to read). Apparently, it’s about the life of this relatively regular (innocent?) guy who actually lived in the house that is now the museum.

Each display case was an artwork, in presentation, composition, juxtaposition, and the pregnancy of meaning in objets trouvés. And that’s not even having read the book.

Fortunately, I was perusing the three floors of this narrow house with a Syrian guy who was discussing the book, the writing, and the stuff in the displays with his girlfriend (he even bought her a romantic objet in the gift shop).

Anyway, I was eavesdropping for quite a while before asking a few innocent questions which he graciously answered, casting a bit more meaning on the miscellany. It was a Song of Experience…

In any case, on the ground floor, the first and largest display is of over four thousand cigarette butts with notes on each over a period of years. The sheer attention to detail is aesthetically overwhelming!

As one works one’s way up the stairs and follows the linear progression of cases corresponding to chapters, each assemblage tells part of the story, which my new Syrian friend assured me was beautifully written, as well as the English translation (tho’ not the Arabic one?). Check ’em out…

This next batch may be the largest single collection of pix I’ve put in a post – and it’s a run-on from the ones before and after it. You should know that the photographs do not do justice to the display cases because each is about a foot deep, with rich 3D aspects – using the sides, and suspending items with lines – even adding mini video screens, etc… One could spend hours in this small museum ruminating on the details in each case, contemplating their significance in the lives of real people…

This last batch features details from a large display of his notebooks featuring long hand writing and drawings, with detailed interpretive captions. The last pic shows the museum from the outside, but more importantly, the second to last pic is his manifesto for museums, what they can and should be – and which most certainly this one is. I was thrilled to have found it…

Then, the serendipity went on steroids! The Museum of Innocence is adjacent to an agglomeration of antique shops in the Çukurcuma section of Cihangir neighborhood off Istiklal Street. I went into a few of them, but was overwhelmed by the onslaught of artifacts.

Each one could represent hours of browsing, and there were dozens. Each one had far more detail than the displays in the Museum of Innocence. Each one was so densely packed with art and history and meaning that I dared not go in. I could just take photos of these intricate display cases, these vast and intriguing collections, these epic collage/montage/assemblage business artworks…

Yes, there are other things in these two batches. Paintings, community water fountains, actual art galleries, and the charming streets of my new favorite neighborhood in Istanbul. Some shops had themes – marbles, clothing, books, jewelry, furniture, etc., but all represented years of collecting, each a library of novels by more than one Nobel Prize for Literature winner!

Hopefully, you share or can at least appreciate my appreciation for collections of things, especially beautiful or somehow meanful ones. Their juxtaposition or composition; and the flights of imagination one can take in reflecting on where they have been, and who else appreciated them, and when, and how, and why…?