Blindsight

This exhibition, presenting new works by Rafet Arslan, whose art practice is as aesthetic as it is thoughtful, utilizes various techniques including collages, assemblages, place arrangements, videos and acrylic paints on canvas to lend substance to his selected stories about the nature of civilization and its fragility.

 

‘Blindsight’ breathes in the ambivalent space between utopia and dystopia. The artist has designed the exhibition’s image as a duet between singular works of art from a workshop and industrially-produced ‘ready-made’ products.

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Rafet Arslan, while creating series of images of the contradictions of ‘being human’, bases his world of imagery on fundamental contrasts like life-death, light-darkness and civilization-ruin. While approaching the question of ‘what is human’, he explores an alternative angle, looking at ‘what is not human’ (animals, mannequins, robots, etc.) Rafet Arslan establishes a road-map of the human condition based on the symbol of a snake swallowing its own tail. The artist embraces dark humor, a chuckle in the darkness that provides life energy in traumatic conditions.

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From the heart of darkness, he asks: What is the nature of evil? Did everything begin with the eating of an apple and a fall to earth? Why does mankind feel such a sick passion for death and destruction?