NASAN TUR (B. 1974)

Drawing upon tensions that he discovers between the urban environment and the gallery space, Nasan Tur’s work comments on the conflicts and failures of ideologies. Acting as a call to arms against repression and towards social and political freedom, the artist explores these issues largely through the medium of his own body, which he pushes to extremes in both comedic and powerful performative works such as his ten-channel video installation of 2011, Breaking Records.

In his Traces series recently exhibited at Dirimart, Istanbul, Tur created an installation of drawing works for the first time in his career. Across eighteen framed sheets, it presents a colourful reimagination of cave paintings in the artist’s attempt to ‘approach the origin of pictorial representation’. In this series, and particularly in Traces-4, Tur highlights how cave paintings remind us that fundamental issues of human nature remain unresolved. Through the game-like reenactment of prehistoric painting to the nursery-school activities of present day, his hand drawings assemble modernist abstractions and repetitive patterns that bridge art practices from ancient and contemporary history.

Nasan Tur currently lives and works in Berlin, and has exhibited extensively including solo exhibitions at Museumsquartier, Felix Nussbaum Haus, Osnabrück (2019) and Fondazione Adolfo Pini, Milan (2017). He has exhibited in biennales including documenta14 (2017); the 6th Taipei Biennale (2008) and the 10th Istanbul Biennale (2007); as well as in group exhibitions at Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2015); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2015); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2013) and Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2009). He is currently working towards his solo exhibition at Berlinische Galerie, Berlin, in 2023.