A Page from the Drawing Papers Archive
This page from Drawing Papers 78 features L’Homme XXVI: Hallucinations, Arture 385 created with handmade pigments and ink on paper by Yüksel Arslan in 1988.
The 2008 exhibition Yüksel Arslan: Visual Interpretations presented a 50 year survey of Arslan’s work, providing an intimate glimpse into his thinking, interests, and obsessions. For many decades, Arslan mined the depths of the unconscious mind, bringing together Western and Eastern aesthetics and philosophy in finely wrought works that he calls “Artures”. Serial in format, the hundreds of drawings he produced dealt with subjects as varied as schizophrenia and the eroticism of de Sade, Bataille, and Artaud, as well as visual interpretations of artists, poets, writers, scientists, musicians, and philosophers that have influenced his thinking. Arslan’s working process included the use of self-made and antique tools and the production of his own colors using ancient methods of combining raw pigments with his own saliva, blood, urine, and other organic materials like honey, earth, and egg whites.
The Drawing Papers are a series of publications documenting The Drawing Center’s exhibitions and public programs and providing a forum for the study of drawing. For more information on Drawing Papers 78 please click here.
-Kate Robinson, Bookstore Manager
