The eyes of Mehmet Ünal

Under photography I don`t understand, as it is

he meaning in many instances, that if someone

takes a camera in his hand, clic, clic and a so

called photo is done. I dont`see it as a job if with

the modern and technical cleverness equipped

cameras, the very sensetive films and the possibilities

with the paper and colour usagethey can very easy be

developed.

I have the opinion, that since the first camera until

today, not the camera shoots the photo, but the eye

behind the camera, respectively the bewareness

and the sense, that hides behind the eye, takes

the shot. The heart takes the complying love, the

joy, the furore or the toiling pain of human beeings.

With this understanding photography is art, that

at least is as complex as writing Novels or even

poetry.

Therefore there are though all technical possibilities

and all the needed materials only a few photographers

as there are only a few romanciers and poets or even

poetry.

Actually what is art? Is`it not in some aspect like

science, seeing and showing reality of the good

and the beauty?

As we can not see the bacteriums without a

microscope, we cannot see the reality without

help of the art, that is endless infront of us, in

us and flooding out of us. What we think we have

seen, is the superficial and the blinds. Under this

aspect we are coerced , through art, that sees the

glass ceiling behind the visible showing the human

beeing, over this ocean, that thousands of wave are

stiring up, as far as our power is reaching, to think

about it from the most difficult side and to understand.

When I met my friend Mehmet Ünal in Mainz 1979,

I noticed , that he is one the the few " crackpots",

meaning that he belongs to the art possessed

people. He came from Turkey and worked

as a social worker for the workers between Mainz

and Koblenz. Fotography seemed to be minor matter.

But I think it is his maine job.

" Whatever I do, however I put all my engery into it,

it doesn`t work out", he says and all the time he is

biting on his lips.

The satisfaction, who find easily at your work, is

very hard to find in arts. Since we have met I have

spend a lot of time with him. We have met very

often in the Ruhr-Area, Frankfurt, Duisburg, Köln

and the area of Mainz talking for hours. All the

years he did his job, his free time he applied himself

to art. Endless he said it doesn``t work, whatever I do

it doesn`t work.  It is the fact, our friend Mehmet Ünal

belongs to the few peoplethat understand art as very

complicated. He works very hard and is very

exhausted. However when he says it doesnt work,

he still makes great improvements.

Whenever we meet we talk about photography .

Until now we have not had a chance to move to novels.

We look at his photographies . During the last years

he has shot a lot of photographies at places he has

visited, so may photos that would fill up albums and

galeries. But if an exhibition opens he only can select

40 to 50 photos out of the lot that fills his collection.

Again he says: " It does not work". And I want to

tell him that I mean it works out. But as he sees the

art like very serious artists from the difficult side,

he is disaffected. With his eyes in which the

beaming sun of Anatolia is reflecting, he sees the

realityand shows the human beeing.. Endless being

confronted with problems, with his Gorki-mustache

and his camera around his neck, he shoots photos

of foreign workers since many years. Sometimes he

sees the photography insufficient , then he writes

poems, stories and reportages. When

he has a chance for a meeting of half an hour with

Jannis Ritsos, a grand child of Homer, he suddenly

travels to Greece. And to talk to Emil Carlebach

he hurries immediately to Frankfurt. Emil

Carlebach was one of the twenty people that stayed

alive out of 2000 during the transport from concentration

camp Dachau to Buchenwald.

When the German press was reporting 40 years after

the end of 2nd world war, about the defeat of Germany,

the old revolutionunist told my friend Mehmet, how they

smuggled parts out of the weapon factories

where they had to do forced labor, and produced

weapons themselves. They rescude themselves out

of the concentration camp before the allies arrived.

He says: We won the war, the German resistance

fighters. This is exactly realizing and showing of the

glass ceiling behind and the visible showing. Mehmet

sees the Anatolian woman, of which millions live

completely isolated since years, in a telephone

booth and shows it to us. He tells abount the joy in

the turkish workers shining eyeswith the umbrella in

his hand, which you are unable to put

into words. He shoots photos of the youngsters,

having no time to loose, the old ones on the park

benches, that due to isolation and tedium

rarely live in this world.

Mehmet looks and shows the birds desert life on

the wire in the industry society. For us he takes

photo shots of the children that are unhappy in

school, whose parents work in the factories, and

they have been left lonely at home. If I see how this

tireless artist, this tireless fighter for freedom, with

his camera around his neck is showing social evils,

while he has success I feel very happy.

Permanently I want to be witness of his numerous

exhibitions and plenty of photobooks published

in the future.

Fakir Baykurt
Duisburg 1985