The Case of Outgoing Autocrats

Description: The Case of Outgoing Autocrats is a lecture-performance in which artist Hande Sever explores the figure of Kenan Evren—painter, self-appointed art critic, former president of Turkey, and leader of the 1980 military coup—alongside the strategic deployment of visual culture as a tool of historical revisionism during the Cold War. The lecture-performance emerges from a broader body of research tracing the systematic erasure of public artworks under Evren’s presidency. Focusing on the cultural infrastructure reshaped by his regime, Sever examines how Evren’s dismantling and reconstruction of contemporary art institutions transformed Turkey’s cultural landscape. Drawing from a constellation of archival fragments—including audio recordings, photographs, state documents, and literary texts—she reexamines histories of repression, censorship, and resistance.

Image Description: Performance documentation, ‘Hande Sever: The Case of Outgoing Autocrats: Public Art, Alliance Structures, and Far-Right Military Violence in Turkey’, REDCAT: The Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater, 2025. Photo: Yubo Dong, ofstudio.