Sitting unapologetically (some might say hubristically) on the banks of the Bosphorus, Istanbul Modern is the face of contemporary culture in Turkey’s largest metropolis. Recently rejuvenated, the museum’s presence continues to grow as a kind of intercontinental beacon, showcasing works by a host of major international artists. Last June, its halls opened to Icelandic Danish artist Olafur Eliasson’s ambitious solo exhibition “Your unexpected encounter,” replete with object-oriented studies of vanishing glaciers—including a stark bronze sculpture The presence of absence pavilion (2019), an inverted cast of a melting block of Greenland ice. The exhibition offered lucid visualizations of movement in nature as a form of transformation, and the curatorial conceit achieved depth beyond mere spectacle. Natural phenomena were reimagined here with the scintillant, distinct focus of an artist whose perspective is every bit as world-weary as the residents of Istanbul. Eliasson’s baroque practice spans installations that sprawl with the flotsam and jetsam of naturalist curiosity, especially Model for your circular city (2024). The work features a round table piled with geometrical models made in collaboration with the late Icelandic artist-architect Einar Thorsteinn, and amounts to a studio-based, sculptural amalgamation of mathematical, astronomical, and geographical explorations.