Hanefi Yeter

Hanefi Yeter (* 1947 in Bayburt , Turkey ) is a Turkish painter.

biography

Yeter has lived and worked in Berlin since 1973 .

Born in Bayburt in 1947, Yeter studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul from 1967 to 1972 , then went to Berlin as an art student (1973 to 1978) at the Hochschule der Künste and stayed there after completing his studies.

Since 2000 he has also been running studios in Istanbul and Bodrum .

Artistic work

Stele for Celalettin Kesim , Kottbusser Tor, in Berlin-Kreuzberg

Yeter was already well known in Germany as a Turkish painter in the 1980s. His pictures appeared in books or as book covers. Die Kanaken's album cover was created in 1984 using Yeter's oil painting "Zwei Unter Uns".

From the mid-1990s, however, his art changed radically. Parts carved from wooden panels, which are mostly designed as ornamentation, are mounted on a background, which is usually provided with paintings. The carved part allows a view of the paintings in the background in places. Thus begins the interrelation between the two parts, which as such unite to form a complete work. The effects of light, shadow, flatness and the viewer's point of view play an important role in these works.

These works are inspired by Islamic-oriental wood carving, paper cutting and under glass painting. They reduce the painting surface to a minimum. Compared to the earlier engraved wood panel works, the ornamental motifs are more important here.

The content is conveyed with figurative, symbolic ornamentation. Many of these works correspond in their symbolic content with pictures from past centuries or old oral narratives. In this way, Yeter succeeds in illustrating the different interpretations of borderline questions in our time. This exchange between the present and earlier epochs is not limited to Islamic culture.

The content of these works has a lot of irony, humor, sarcasm, absurdity and chaotic relationships. Yeter comes to a new synthesis with them, which represent a reaction against the abundance of images in the modern world. The flood of images of the present destroys their own effect through the sheer mass. Although this flood of images forces the artist to act, Yeter's reaction is not to renounce figurative images, but to save them in a zone outside of this mass of images.

The mythical-symbolic way of thinking of the oriental-ornamental pictures and the plastic-painterly possibilities of expression of the occidental art tradition enrich one another. The oriental expression enables him to make statements in an essential form, while the occidental tradition enables him to give his reflections a face and an identity.

The coexistence in his works of art is not based on tolerance, but on necessity. They are not based on an abstract, alien and theoretical concept, but on life as humans really do and experience it. In this sense, one of Yeter's last wood carvings was directed against the Iraq war. This work did not criticize America, but the Bush administration and its gross violation of human rights in Iraq. It was supposed to be exhibited at the “Istanbul Art” art fair from December 8th to 12th, 2004, but the exhibition ultimately didn't materialize.

For his art, Yeter not only draws on the different cultural traditions as a source of inspiration, but also lets them work - confront - exist side by side in his works of art. Sometimes the viewer is overwhelmed because he knows little or no knowledge of the other culture and the hidden content of the image motifs is therefore often inaccessible. This is one of the greatest problems and challenges of our time of globalization.

On January 5, 1980, Celalettin Kesim was murdered in an attack by Turkish fascists and religious fundamentalists at Kottbusser Tor. In the early 1990s, a memorial stele created by Hanefi Yeter in his memory was erected at the crime scene .

Catalogs

• "Hanefi Yeter - A Turkish Painter in Berlin.", Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin 1980, 144 p. (With poems by Nazim Hikmet )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ For the love of Allah. ( Memento of the original from May 30, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Jungle World  

Web links

Commons : Hanefi Yeter  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Hanefi Yeter in the catalog of the German National Library
• Website of the artist