Superdogan

In 2016, Nicolas Righetti went to Turkey to report for the Wall Street Journal, following in the footsteps of rising leader Erdoğan. As he photographed triplets named Recep, Tayyip and Erdoğan respectively, he decided to delve deeper into this megalomaniac and authoritarian political figure. Fascinated by figures of power, Nicolas Righetti documents representations of Erdoğan in the public space, culminating in a visual study of the cult of personality. From campaign posters to derivative products, we discover the drift of the man who dreams himself as the new sultan of a resurrected Ottoman Empire. “Here, proof by image works in reverse: it’s the overload that denounces the delirium of this power dreaming of conquests beyond its borders: Nagorno-Karabakh, Syria, Libya, Cyprus, the Aegean and even, by 2023, the moon. In the run-up to Turkey’s presidential elections in June 2023, the photographer’s eye provides a better understanding of the mythological construction process of an autocratic president who has been in power in Turkey for almost twenty years.