'This can only be a good thing for the city,' says Koc. International contemporary art galleries, including Yvon Lambert, the Lisson Gallery and Pace are showing. 102-104), which takes place at the Halic Congress Centre on the banks of the Golden Horn between 16-18 September. But this year sees the inception of an ambitious new fair, ArtInternational Istanbul (see Around the Galleries, pp. For some years, the city has played host to the 'Contemporary Istanbul' fair, in which the exhibitors are mostly local galleries. Istanbul's contemporary art scene is thriving, thanks to the Kocs, the Eczacibasi family-whose Istanbul Museum of Modern Art opened in 2004-and commercial groups such as Garanti Bank, which bankrolls the exhibition and research space SALT. But it is private patrons, rather than the government, that are the driving force behind this cultural blossoming. His home country's political tensions contrast with what many see as a cultural renaissance in Istanbul. 3), 20th-century self-portraits, erotica and contemporary art, he also has one of the most important private libraries in Turkey. For him it is no weekend hobby but a passion that appears to absorb much of his time. In spite of the pressures of business, he is a dedicated collector. Omer is deputy chairman of the board of directors and, together with other members of his family, helps to run a number of the group's subsidiary companies. Koc Holding, which first gathered all the Koc family businesses together in 1963, comprises more than 100 companies. I was there to meet Omer Koc, scion of a family whose business interests include Turkey's only oil refinery, car manufacturing, and financial services. The city's wealthy elite were in, or en route to Bodrum on the Aegean Coast, where many have summer homes. All the same, August is a quiet month, and the city's traffic-about which I had been warned-was light. The broken windows had been repaired, but the mass demonstrations of early summer had left raw and difficult memories. When I visited Istanbul in early August, the smoke, so to speak, was still clearing. He talks to Apollo about his passion for rare books, the enigma of portraiture, and why the rhinoceros is king Omer Koc owns one of the finest private libraries in Turkey, overshadowed only by his ever-expanding collections of Iznik ware, self-portraits and contemporary work.

Omer koc london house