German Artist Nasan Tur To Open First Solo Show At Blain/Southern London

Nasan Tur

Blain/Southern presents Nasan Tur’s first-ever UK solo exhibition. Tur’s work often reflects the social conditions in which it is produced, exploring political ideologies and the symbols of power that are present throughout our environment. This is the German artist’s second show with the gallery, following Tur’s 2013 presentation at Blain/Southern Berlin.

The new exhibition brings together new and recent works the exhibition explores the notion of failure and fragility, both in relation to the individual and society more broadly. Our everyday struggle, where we ‘fail’ and ‘win’ in equal measure, is examined both through reference to the body and via the form of text.

One area in which failure or fragility is palpable is in the context of war and conflict. The work ‘First Shot’ (2014), is a large-scale video work, depicting a number of people shooting a firearm for the first time. Set within a dark, undefined space. The footage is slowed so that every action or movement is rendered monumental. Fingers curl clasping the base of the gun; an eye slowly squints to take aim; smoke billows through the air upon the revolver being fired, as a booming sound echoes through the gallery. The pistol’s force is expressed in the individuals’ shock and recoil, the lethality of the weapon revealing the fragility of the human body and our instinctive emotional response.

Another video work, In ‘My Pants’ (2015), is a time-based piece that initially seems to show a static image of a man staring out at the viewer. It is only as the video elapses and the blue indigo dye of the man’s jeans deepens and spreads that we realise he has abandoned control of his bladder. His intense stare remains fixed, as a puddle of urine collects at his feet. Is this real, or a montage? The work depicts an unnerving loss of control expressed on a bodily level, while the face suggests an indiscernible motionlessness.

The fragility of the human body is palpable in the exhibition’s numerous sculptures, following a year’s residency at Villa Massimo in Rome, where the artist was surrounded by classical sculptures in a state of fragmentation with arms missing, and absent noses, these works give form to these missing body parts.

Tur also explores the boundaries of communication, as well as the tentative, or fragile nature of perception, are both driving forces behind the artist’s practice. Text and messages that express ideas of failure are suggested in the exhibition’s two woodcuts, ‘Morality is Ridiculous’ and ‘Humanity is Weak’ (both 2015). With philosophical statements that are highly contentious and questionable, the works utilise the oldest printing technique in the form of the woodblock, which becomes a tool for the endless reproducibility of texts or slogans.

Conversely, in ‘Police Painting’ (2014), we see text being covered up – an attempt to suppress free speech. The artist captures graffiti that has been overlaid with police paint; using this form as a readymade, he then perfectly and exactly reproduces it within the gallery context, re-writing the unwritten. The message may have been obscured, but the political potency of this attempt at censorship is felt strongly.

At six metres, the large-scale, floor-based sculpture ‘Crisis’ (2014) fills the entirety of the first gallery. Like an advertising sign mounted upon steel that has fallen to the ground, its gentle amber glow pulsates and permeates beyond the gallery windows; it is not until you are in direct proximity that the phrase ‘crisis’ reveals itself. The exhibition highlights the emergence of possibilities and the potential for change and reflection.

Blain/Southern: Nasan Tur – London Hanover Square – 26 March 2015 to 23 April 2015

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