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Kurt Beck calls Mehmet Ünal: "A Time Witness and Seismograph"
Opening speech of Kurt Beck, the Prime Minister of Rheinland-Pfalz at the Photo Exhibition "Hotel Germany - A Journey without Return", August 2001
Mr. Beck calls Mehmet Ünal a time witness and seismograph, who aims to raise awareness. During the opening of Ünal's photo exhibition "Hotel Germany - A Journey without Return" at the Mainz city hall Mr. Beck said that Ünal's approach is that of an unobtrusive observer. By viewing his photographs of Turkish fellow citizens in Germany one feels the photographer's realationship to the humans.
Ünal is a picture finder, who does not run behind the motive. Regardless of mainstream and press box pressures, working without telephoto but only a 50-milimeter-lens and therefore captureing with the naked eye, scenes and portraits, that elude a great expressiveness and intensity. Ünal does not belong to the motorized experts, who like hunters encircle their motive waiting for the decisive moment to press the release button, said the Prime Minister.
None of Ünal's photos, to whom Kurt Beck feels connected through a longstanding friendship, hurts the human dignity. In none of the photos social circumstances are dramatized or pilloried. The photos of Mehmet Ünal who knows the life of his Turkish fellow citizens in this country very well, are for the Prime Minister deeply social, not in the sense of a social documentary, but in a more literal sense of close association and with respect of the people, that forbids any sort of pushy curiosity.
Public Chamber
August 10th, 2001