PHOROGRAPHER MEHMET GÜNYELİ: DERVISHES
PHOROGRAPHER MEHMET GÜNYELİ: DERVISHES
‘’ Come, come again, whoever you are, come!
Heathen, fire worshipper or idolatrous, come!
Come even if you broke your penitence a hundred times,
Ours is the portal of hope, come as you are. ‘’
Rumi
In a manner hardly achieved by another artist before,
Mehmet Günyeli, has depicted in his work a very complex ritual practiced in its
original form by the different orders of dervishes for centuries, employing a
minimalistic figurative language. The dervishes shown in this exhibition live
in İstanbul. The oral and written tradition of the famous mystic Mevlana
Celaleddin Rumi from the present day Konya influences their dance through a
profound symbolism.
Mehmet Günyeli is deliberately abstaining from showing
the individual faces. In terms of Mevlana’s mystical spirituality, the bodies
of the dervishes form an entity. They are liberated from any ‘’ego‘’.
Günyeli’s work is conceived for a better and more peaceful
world.
http://www.mehmetgunyeli.com/index_e.html
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MEHMET GÜNYELİ
He was born in Kadıköy, Istanbul. After graduating from Saint Joseph High School, he made his B. A. İn Political Sciences.
He starred photography in the 1980 ‘ s, and participated exhibitions both in the country and abroad, made transperant shows and won awards.
He went to many countries which are capable of protecting themselves against global rivalry, and completed his photography project ‘’ The Colour of Earth ‘’ . He is known as being against cultural globalization. In resent years, hi focused on contemporary and conceptual themse. He has four photography books: Viva Cuba Libre, India, Dervishes and sea of fate.
His photographs take place collection of Istanbul Modern, Elgiz Contemporary Art Museum, Borusan Contemporary, Houston Museum of Fine Arts.
