Rafet Arslan: Library of Babel 2, Successive Totems and other Stories

Library of Babel 2- “Successive Totems and other Stories”

Rafet Arslan is questioning the relationship between a Totem as an item of eternity and icons, that got pseudo Totems of our daily life and consumerism. The Chanel-bottle, Car-brands and genderbased icons got Totems of a lifestyle, that is falsly confused with an eternity it doesn’t include.

The reference to Damien Hirst’s “For the Love of God”, a Platin-scull covered with 8601 Diamonds, points out the borderline between art as a possible Totem of eternity or of consumerism. Beside their complex concepts both shows, Library of Babel 1- “Ziggurat Tamer” and Library of babel 2-“Successive Totems and other Stories”, are crownd by a never ending sense of humour in Arslan’s works. Fragmentary stories, icons, sounds and light are part of a collection of endles fantastic stories a Babel Library is promising to us.

The reference of the “Library of Babel” evokes a couple of associations. The famous short story of Jorge Luis Borges’ (1941) describes the architecture of a universe-size Library. The discussion following the text scrolled around the infinity of knowledge regarding endless possibilities of combining knowledge and creating new relations. Several artists have worked on this motive, while Borges himself named a collection of fantastic narrations his “Library of Babel” (1974).

Exhibition at G-Art Istanbul, 25.01.-22.02.14

also read: Rafet Arslan: Library of Babel 1- “Ziggurat Tamer” http://senseoftime.inenart.eu/?p=5195

related post: Periferi Kolektif: http://www.inenart.eu/?p=1163 

and: Hayaka Artı: discarted      http://www.inenart.eu/?p=8769

and: Periferi. The terror of reality:   http://senseoftime.inenart.eu/?p=2236