By SUZY HANSEN
Published: February 10, 2012

From the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/magazine/istanbul-art-boom-bubble.html

Earlier this winter, the giant 120-year-old Ottoman bank building in Istanbul reopened as a multimillion-dollar contemporary art space called SALT. This was surprising. Turks were never big on contemporary art, and for years rich people didn’t visit that part of town. When I moved to the neighborhood five years ago, it was all electrical-supply stores and abandoned buildings and men smoking. My building didn’t have heat; girlfriends wouldn’t visit after dark; a neighbor once attacked another neighbor with a small sword. I don’t see swords in Istanbul anymore. I do see a lot more art.

One evening in November, Turks and foreigners traipsed up the cobbled sidewalks to SALT’s huge, heavy doors for the opening-night party. The headline exhibit featured thousands of old black-and-white photographs taken by a dead Armenian studio photographer and carefully assembled by…