Esma Yiğitoğlu
Sonsbeek 2026
Museum Arnhem, Arnhem
Inleiding
Üç Kabir (Three Cabiri), 1998
Ode aan mijn kleren (Ode to My Clothes), 1997
Geen Titel, 1992-95
Geen Titel 2000-01
Z.T./Geen Titel, 2003-2004
Esma Yiğitoğlu was a Turkish-Dutch artist known for her sculptures, drawings, and paintings. She used elemental materials such as paper pulp, loam, terracotta, straw, bamboo, rope, and textile and drew on Sufi philosophy, Islamic architectural forms, vernacular building traditions, and Western art history. After moving to the Netherlands in 1961, she studied at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam (1961–66). Yiğitoğlu was a community organizer, founding the Turkish Cultural Center for Women in Rotterdam, and working to combat illiteracy and support the emancipation of Turkish migrant women. At Museum Arnhem, we present a selection of sculptures from the 1990s to 2000s. In her iconic Üç Kabir (Three Cabiri) constructed from clay reinforced with straw, three upright forms resemble grave markers crowned with turban-like tops that refer to the Cabiri—mythic guardians of subterranean treasures, which Goethe describes as small in stature yet great in strength and closely linked to the mineral world. In Ode aan mijn kleren (Ode to My Clothes, 1997), based on the title of a mid-1950s Pablo Neruda poem, bamboo poles bound with rope emerge from a triangular clay base, referencing the Turkish custom of hanging garments in sacred trees as acts of wish-making. In her paper pulp figures such as Figure (1992), Gehoornd wezen (Horned Creature, 1993), and Ion (1992), surfaces crack like sun-dried soil, recalling mud architecture and the loam walls of rural Anatolia. Yiğitoğlu’s works propose grounding, guardianship, and spiritual orientation that evoke tombs while remaining abstract and autonomous. Her sculptures are neither human nor animal, but sentinels between material and immaterial realms.
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Over de kunstenaar
Esma Yiğitoğlu (b. 1944, Zincidere, Türkiye; d. 2009, Rotterdam) is known for her sculptures, drawings, and paintings using natural materials such as paper pulp, loam, and terracotta. Her works are steeped in the traditions of Sufism and architecture, drawing inspiration from symbols such as amulets, graves, minarets, and mosques. She moved to the Netherlands in 1961 and studied at Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam between 1961 and 1966. Her active cultural involvement, particularly related to Turkish women, manifest in her organizing sewing lessons for Turkish women to mobilize them, which led to the creation of the Turkish Cultural Center for Women in Rotterdam. She also organized exhibitions about Turkish culture for municipal institutions and combatted the illiteracy of Turkish women, playing a crucial role in their emancipation within migrant families living in Rotterdam. Her work has been featured in publications including Vanuit Turkije en Marokko (exh. cat., Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, 1980), and shown in Türkiye and in the Netherlands at venues such as TENT Rotterdam in 2016 and Stedelijk Museum Schiedam in 1980.
Presented by Sonsbeek 2026 in collaboration with Museum Arnhem
With thanks to the estate of Esma Yiğitoğlu