Wilma Tolksdorf

NASAN TUR - GIVING IS TAKING

12 Sep - 11 Nov 2015

Nasan Tur, GIVING IS TAKING, 2015, Woodcut, 160 x 250 cm
Courtesy GALERIE WILMA TOLKSDORF | © Nasan Tur, VG Bild-Kunst
Works by Nasan Tur will be presented at the Galerie Wilma Tolksdorf for the first time. His artistic practice is multi disciplinary and multi medial; it comprises photography, sculpture, video, drawing, performance, installation and is defined by questions concerning the predominant political, economical and socio-cultural conditions and sign systems nowadays.

The work "GIVING IS TAKING", 2015 constitutes the title of the exhibition. Being one of the two large format woodcuts presented in the show this work is symptomatic for Tur's recurring interest in word, writing, language and their circulation in diverse contexts. Arguable, mirror-inverted statements or claims are monumentally inscribed into the wood. The woodcuts can be used as plates for potentially unlimited prints and therefore raise the questions of authorship and originality of a work. In doing so the woodcuts emphasize the aspects of the processuality and time in the world today characterized by the rapidity of the digital communication.

For the work "Variationen von Kapital", 2013 around 41.000 possibilities of spelling the word "Kapital" with the same phonetic readability were generated by a computer. The artist then has written these orthographic variations with Indian ink on precious Tibetan paper transferring the words into the medium of the drawing. In the exhibition space a part of these unique copies will be presented on two walls in a regular grid. On the one hand this work refers to the relations between mechanical and manual production processes; on the other side it points towards the interrelations between work, product and capital.

Made for the exhibition "Wall Works" at the Hamburger Bahnhof the video work "Berlin Says...", 2013 deals with language and sign systems we face as graffiti in urban space. Nasan Tur repeatedly overlays and overwrites sprayed slogans found by him on house walls in Berlin. At the end we perceive an almost monochrome screen which becomes kind of a hidden and indecipherable archive of an urban protest culture.

The frontier between the private and the public spaces is articulated by the work "Demo Kits Deluxe", 2009. The furled banner and spray cans refer to the possibility of the free speech. At the same time the usage of precious materials such as high quality woods, valuably silk and the attractive form of presentation of each kit comments on the aestheticization and relativization of protest movements by the capitalistic systems.


Nasan Tur (*1974) studied at the Städelschule, Frankfurt/M and at the Hochschule für Gestaltung, Offenbach/M, he lives and works Berlin. Nasan Tur's works were presented in international exhibitions e.g. Centre Pompidou, Paris, Blain|Southern, London/Berlin, Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Istanbul Modern, Museum of Modern Art, Istanbul, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Kunsthalle Kiel, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Kunsthalle Mannheim, West, Den Haag, Kunstraum Innsbruck, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Yapi Kredi Art Gallery, Istanbul, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Wien, 6th Taipei Biennial, Taiwan and 10th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul. Nasan Tur received numerous awards, most recently the Will Grohmann Prize of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin and the Villa Massimo Fellowship of the German Academy Rome.

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Galerie Wilma Tolksdorf: 0049 69 - 430 594 27 / office@wilmatolksdorf.de
 

Tags: Nasan Tur