Power and pleasure within the Homoerotic Ottoman garden

ONUR HASTÜRK Dark Garden I, 2024, Ink and watercolor on paper

Dark Garden I is in direct conversation with a Homoerotic Ottoman history that is not seen as appropriate for traditional miniature artists. For Onur Hastürk to engage as he does means he is not only bringing history back to the form, but is acknowledging the multiplicity of Ottoman identity-formation and power relations that have existed. While it may seem he is completely subverting the form of the miniature to play with contemporary themes, through the history displayed here, he demonstrates an attention to the history of the form that would still align him with the traditional.

The use of leather and what appears to be other modern sexual accoutrement is what brings this work into the contemporary, creating a rift in time that brings the traditional and the contemporary together–power is still part of pleasure, pleasure can still be gained without penetration, and the Homoerotic has always and will always exist.

Hastürk plays with notions of class, power, sex, and pleasure to not only counteract the idea that Queerness did not exist within the Ottoman empire, but to ask the viewer to consider how they approach sex within their own pursuit of pleasure.

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Published: 1st October 2025

Categorised in: For the Record