{"title":"An Inside Look at Yüksel Arslan's Outsider Practice, 1955–64","authors":"Ambra D'Antone","doi":"10.1111/1467-8365.12713","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>This essay provides new evidence for a historiographical re-contextualization of the early artistic practice of Turkish artist Yüksel Arslan (1933–2017). Within this scholarship, Arslan is generally portrayed as an outsider figure who resisted traditional artistic categorizations; consequently, the historical conditions leading to his artistic posture in 1950s Istanbul, where his career began, remain underexplored. Arslan's fascination for prehistoric methods of image making, his erudite subject matters, and his contributions to the legacies of surrealism and of <i>art brut</i> have been mostly regarded by critics and art historians as idiosyncratic elements of his artistic identity. Focusing on Arslan's early production in 1950s Istanbul and its reception in art criticism and art historiography, the essay argues that Arslan's outsider status was informed by and contributed to widespread debates about artistic heritage and what its role should be in Turkey's fraught political scenario of the 1950s, torn between liberalism and centralized governance, and in the context of Turkey's contemporary artistic production.</p>","PeriodicalId":8456,"journal":{"name":"Art History","volume":"46 2","pages":"344-369"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2023-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Art History","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8365.12713","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"ART","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This essay provides new evidence for a historiographical re-contextualization of the early artistic practice of Turkish artist Yüksel Arslan (1933–2017). Within this scholarship, Arslan is generally portrayed as an outsider figure who resisted traditional artistic categorizations; consequently, the historical conditions leading to his artistic posture in 1950s Istanbul, where his career began, remain underexplored. Arslan's fascination for prehistoric methods of image making, his erudite subject matters, and his contributions to the legacies of surrealism and of art brut have been mostly regarded by critics and art historians as idiosyncratic elements of his artistic identity. Focusing on Arslan's early production in 1950s Istanbul and its reception in art criticism and art historiography, the essay argues that Arslan's outsider status was informed by and contributed to widespread debates about artistic heritage and what its role should be in Turkey's fraught political scenario of the 1950s, torn between liberalism and centralized governance, and in the context of Turkey's contemporary artistic production.
期刊介绍:
Art History is a refereed journal that publishes essays and reviews on all aspects, areas and periods of the history of art, from a diversity of perspectives. Founded in 1978, it has established an international reputation for publishing innovative essays at the cutting edge of contemporary scholarship, whether on earlier or more recent periods. At the forefront of scholarly enquiry, Art History is opening up the discipline to new developments and to interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approaches.