{"id":59363,"date":"2017-11-24T17:07:19","date_gmt":"2017-11-24T16:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/?p=59363"},"modified":"2017-11-24T17:07:19","modified_gmt":"2017-11-24T16:07:19","slug":"studio-tour-nasan-tur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/studio-tour-nasan-tur\/","title":{"rendered":"Studio Tour: Nasan Tur on Kunst, Controversy and Questioning Society"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a bit messy,\u201d Nasan Tur apologises as he unlocks the door to his studio. \u201cI\u2019ve been travelling, so I haven\u2019t been here for a while.\u201d Given that he’s a Blain|Southern favourite who has over 40 solo exhibitions under his belt, who cares if his studio\u2019s messy? (Besides, our photographer had already taken the photos.) \u201cCan I get you a Turkish coffee?\u201d Tur asks me as he looks in the half empty fridge and realises it’s frosted up. \u201cMake yourself comfortable!\u201d he gestures, and I do, as he proceeds to chisel the excess ice from the inside of the fridge with a knife. Before long we\u2019re sitting with our coffee and eating sticky Turkish delight. \u201cI always buy this brand,\u201d he tells me, \u201cbut normally they have powder on the outside. They forgot the powder!\u201d
\nThis air of unpreparedness is refreshing and Tur\u2019s ease is contagious, as he takes everything in his stride. He\u2019s dressed almost identically to the front cover of his monograph, a portrait still taken from \u201cIn My Pants\u201d<\/a>, except this time it\u2019s a white t-shirt that\u2019s tucked into his jeans \u2014 and he hasn\u2019t wet himself. There\u2019s not an ounce of pretension about him, an observation that\u2019s only solidified over the duration of my visit.
\n\"\"
\nDespite his travelling, Tur tells me he\u2019s often in his studio. \u201cDaily, if I\u2019m not away. It\u2019s very structured, actually. I have two little kids now, and since then I can\u2019t just hang out the whole day drinking cappuccinos,\u201d he laughs. \u201cI come here in the daytime and sometimes in the evenings.\u201d The second-floor studio sits in the old K\u00fcnstlerhaus Bethanien, overlooking Mariannenplatz in Kreuzberg. Tur\u2019s been here for 6 or 7 years. \u201cI like it because it\u2019s full of life,\u201d he explains. The studios are surrounded by a kindergarten, a music school, cafes and restaurants, but are each closed off from one another. \u201cWhen you\u2019re here you\u2019re totally for yourself.\u201d Tur works with assistants on a project-by-project basis, but he\u2019s a firm believer in alone time too. \u201cMy studio is a place for that.\u201d Much of his production happens outside of the studio, with a focus on process and performance. His studio, then, is mainly a place for research and first attempts. \u201cI try things here before I really produce them.\u201d
\n
\nTur is cautious of the \u201cpolitical\u201d label ascribed to much of his work. \u201cIt\u2019s not as if I know things better than other people,\u201d he tells me when I ask about his agenda. \u201cI\u2019m not working didactically.\u201d In fact, Tur\u2019s practice is much more process-based than this. \u201cIt\u2019s not about making something the best or the most beautiful,\u201d he stresses, \u201csomehow art became a tool for me to rethink the things I\u2019m doing.\u201d Rather than political, Tur prefers to view his work as reflective. \u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s about questioning our role inside of society \u2014 what sense it makes and why we\u2019re doing what we\u2019re doing.\u201d This kind of responsive approach helps to explain what makes Tur\u2019s oeuvre so diverse. \u201cThere\u2019s no one constant way I\u2019m working,\u201d he explains, and it\u2019s clearly visible in his late work, which ranges from video, to language-based works, to light installations, to ready-made assemblages and sculpture.
\nWhat unites Tur\u2019s art is its conceptual process: his work becomes a tool for questioning and reflecting upon society. Tur describes his work as being \u201csubtle\u201d and it\u2019s easy to see why. \u201cSea View\u201d (2016) comprises a series of seascape imagery, but upon closer reflection, the pleasant familiarity of the sea view is overshadowed by tragedy, as the images are revealed to be cropped mass-media photographs of refugees dying at sea. \u201cIt\u2019s about how we deal with this situation we\u2019re confronted with via the media,\u201d Tur explains, \u201chow to deal with that psychologically. Somehow you have to protect yourself from this. But to come to this beauty you have to come through these tragedies.\u201d \u201cFunktionieren<\/a>\u201d is similarly engaged, replicating the the populist slogans we\u2019re bombarded with via the media through the rigorous process of woodcutting. The lack of immediacy, entailed by the labour-intensive technique, inhibits the overt, \u201cin-your-face\u201d politicism of other so-called \u201cpolitical\u201d works.
\n\"\"
\nBut despite these seemingly strong political commentaries, Tur doesn\u2019t see his work as contentious. In fact, when I first ask him about controversy surrounding his work, he almost dismisses the question. \u201cIt\u2019s not about being controversial,\u201d he explains, \u201cI don\u2019t know what is controversial\u201d. But later, he talks to me about public projects which caused uproar in their communities. In G\u00f6ppingen, Tur\u2019s boxed-up anti-sculpture, which mirrors (and in doing so exposes) a Nazi sculpture still standing in Oberhofenpark, sparked public outcry. \u201cIt was unbelievably controversial in that city,\u201d he explains. \u201cWhat\u2019s happened in Germany in the last years with the AfD<\/a> and Pegida is that now racism is so present, people can talk about it very openly\u201d. Tur tells me the Nationalism of the community was palpable while producing the work: \u201cthey thought we were going to destroy this beautiful Nazi sculpture.\u201d
\nIn Graz, \u201cThe Unknown Knight\u201d, a bronze casting of Tur\u2019s body as a knight, indirectly ridicules the so-called \u201chistories\u201d behind the existing sculptures in the city. \u201cNormally the sculptures have a specific heroic beautiful body, a bit like the Nazi sculptures, but I have this,\u201d he says, holding his belly and laughing, \u201cand you can see my socks, and I\u2019m circumcised and you can see it. It has to be a Muslim then, or a Jew, and the city has a huge history of anti-semitism.\u201d Granted, the sculpture is not overtly controversial \u2014 it\u2019s a slightly less heroic and more clumsy bronze statue \u2014 but there was backlash from a right-wing internet platform who tried to destroy it and resulted in its removal from its original location. \u201cSo actually it\u2019s a failed, or half failed, project,\u201d Tur admits.
\n\"\"
\nHis latest show, “Splinter In My Eye<\/a>” at Istanbul’s Dirimart Dolapdere, looks to be one of his most ambitious and impressive yet. \u201cThe phrase \u2018a splinter in my eye\u2019 is about rethinking your position in society,\u201d Tur explains. His neons of misspelt words like \u201cfreedom\u201d and \u201cbravery\u201d are both playful and pertinent, echoing the reality of Turkey\u2019s situation through the rhetoric of Erdogan\u2019s politics. The show is also perhaps Tur\u2019s most lavish display to date, making use of highly extravagant symbols. A magnified diamond, destroyed, creates an image that\u2019s almost cosmic; broken chandeliers, the epitome of opulence, appear beautiful at first, but damaged and dangerous on closer inspection. These bold and visual pieces question the notion that wealth means power, and continue to explore the ideas of dissent that are so prolific in Tur\u2019s work.
\nAside from Turkey, Tur also has an exhibition at the Fondazione Adolfo Pini, Milan (opening next week), and is preparing for solo shows in Finland, Belgium and at Blain|Southern, London. Though failure is a consistent theme throughout his practice (forming the title of his first monograph), it’s safe to say that with a new book on the way and a plethora of shows in the works, Nasan Tur is hardly failing.
\n\"\"<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been a busy year for Nasan Tur, Berlin-based, international-bound artist represented by Blain Southern. In between trips to Istanbul and Milan, Tur took the time to show us around his studio.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59514,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11856,8,10172,139],"tags":[4405,9686,9687,9688,9689,1225,9690,763],"class_list":["post-59363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sleek-art","category-berlin","category-film","category-art","tag-blainsouthern","tag-failure","tag-fondazione-adolfo-pini","tag-goppingen","tag-gratz","tag-istanbul","tag-nasan-tur","tag-turkey"],"acf":{"main_category":null,"legacy":"1","exclude_from_ads":null,"hero_title":null,"subtitle":null,"hero":null,"teasers":null,"facebook_image":null,"related_articles":null,"next_article":null,"sleek_card_focus":null,"content":null},"yoast_head":"\nStudio Tour: Berlin-Based Artist Nasan Tur on Controversy & Process<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/studio-tour-nasan-tur\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"de_DE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Studio Tour: Berlin-Based Artist Nasan Tur on Controversy & Process\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It's been a busy year for Nasan Tur, Berlin-based, international-bound artist represented by Blain Southern. 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