Until recently, Paris-based Turkish artist Yüksel Arslan was almost unknown to a broader public. The Kunsthalle Zurich is now presenting for the first time a selection of over 200 works since 1959 outside of Turkey. The exhibition has its focus on Arslan’s “Artures”, works on paper using a unique technique with special paints.

Yüksel Arslan was born in 1933. He left Turkey in 1962 for political reasons and resettled in Paris. Since then, he has been creating a unique oeuvre that is based on his preoccupation with philosophical, sociological, and artistic literature. Despite the presentation of his work at The Drawing Center in New York in 2008 and his huge retrospective at the Santralistanbul Museum in Istanbul in 2009, Yüksel Arslan is still an insider’s tip. Arslan works in his apartment, which reportedly looks more like a library.

On display are eight different groups of Yüksel Arslan’s Artures: The series “L’Homme I”, “L’Homme II”, “L’Homme III”, “Le Capital”, “Influances I”, “Influances II”, “Autoartures”, and “Journales”. The Influences work groups are dedicated to famous figures, such as Henry David Thoreau, Friedrich Nietzsche, Georges Bataille, Kurt Schwitters, and Bertolt Brecht.

Arslan uses special paints that he creates himself by mixing pigments with rather unconventional ingredients such as body fluids, vegetable extracts, petals, grass, oil or charcoal.

Following the presentation at Kunsthalle Zürich (until April 9, 2012), the exhibition will be shown at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf and Kunsthalle Wien.

Yüksel Arslan: Artures / Exhibition at Kunsthalle Zürich at Museum Bärengasse, Zürich / Switzerland. Opening reception, January 27, 2012.

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