Tophane’s Outlet Gallery has moved to Cihangir and has reinvented itself during the process.

Outlet Gallery opened in 2008, aiming to bring contemporary art to the masses, especially the works of Turkish artists whose works have been widely exhibited outside of Turkey but never found a Turkish audience. The need for a larger space and disputes with the landlord led owner Azra Tüzünoğlu to look for a new space. And what she found is surely worth the 16-month construction process.

What is now called Pilot Gallery used to be one of the hippest nightclubs of the 70s. The venue had been out of use for over 30 years when Azra found it. As expected, the venue was a bit of a mess and she was asked multiple times whether they were sure they wanted to buy it. But Azra says, “Even at its worst, this place looked like a beautiful woman with smudged mascara on the morning after.”

Azra says that the reason why they decided to change the name of the gallery from Outlet to Pilot is that Outlet had fulfilled its purpose and that a new name was needed to move forward. The word pilot is written the same way in multiple languages and means the same thing; the word also stands for someone who takes you from one place to the next. Also, a pilot study is the experimental ground of new systems and ideas—just like the innovative Pilot Gallery.

This pioneering venue will not only be a space that showcases artists’ works but it will also be an interactive, social area, a meeting point for exchanging ideas. In fact, Pilot will be launching a digital library through which visitors will be able to access numerous art publications. There are also plans for organizing a variety of workshops, film screenings, and talks.

Even though the main goal of Pilot is displaying artworks and taking an active role in the development of art in Turkey, they also want to answer this question: will there be more interesting works when formerly separate disciplines like literature, cinema, and architecture are brought together with contemporary art?

Now, the venue is almost ready for the gallery’s opening on September 15^th with Halil Altındere’s exhibition called “If I can’t dance, it’s not my revolution.” We would have given you the scoop on what this post-disco gallery looks like but it would spoil all the fun, so we’ll let you check it out yourself.