Yılmaz Zenger, 1933-2018

Departing from many different disciplines ranging from architecture to industrial design, from photography to cinema, Yılmaz Zenger had a multifaceted practice. Armed with his extensive knowledge of and curiosity about materials, he was the first person in Turkey to use composite materials in furniture, make animated films, and work on plastic and fiberglass. Often inclined toward organic forms, Zenger felt no need for a preliminary design and produced his prototypes directly. His method was that of proceeding from the general to the specific. In his approach to sculpture, he aims to remove successive layers until the right result was achieved. Zenger drew on many sources, ranging from a landscape to the mathematical concept of the Möbius strip, and from objects used in everyday life to the flexibilities offered by inorganic materials.

Zenger’s sculpture “Ayça, As I See Her” is essentially three large interlocking pieces. Each complements the others, and the spaces between them give us a sense of the whole. The soft, rounded edges evoke a harmonious fluidity between parts that have been separated from a sphere. The smoothness in the movement of the pieces reflects on the sculpture’s majestic scale and adds a certain grace to its massiveness.