After studying at Darüşşafaka High School between 1973 and 1981, he entered the Electronics Department at Istanbul Technical University. Starting in 1978, Kum’s cartoons began appearing in magazines, and between 1981 and 1983 he worked as a cartoonist for Cumhuriyet newspaper. In 1983, he left university and moved to the Netherlands as an undocumented immigrant. Between 1984 and 1989, he studied at the Amsterdam Gerrit Rietveld Academie and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Den Bosch (Koninklijke Akademie voor Kunst en Vormgeving Den Bosch).
Burhan Kum’s practice examines the contradictions of contemporary society through a critical and often satirical visual language. Drawing on history, politics, popular culture and the mechanisms of power, his works explore how collective narratives are constructed, distorted and consumed. Irony, wordplay and unexpected juxtapositions allow him to address subjects ranging from wealth, authority and violence to cultural identity and the rewriting of history. Moving between painting and works on paper, Kum combines direct observation with dark humour, using familiar images and references to expose the absurdities and tensions embedded in social and political reality.
For more information: