Nasan Tur
16. Januar – 27. Februar 2005

mostly in public places, Nasan Tur observes people and their behavioral patterns and conducts critical yet humorous investigations into our cultural and social identity. His performative interventions, video works, photographs and objects show small disturbances in everyday situations and images. These irritations, which are more playful than provocative, succeed in expanding our imagination. Nasan Tur has prefixed the concept of his exhibition at Kunstverein Arnsberg with the term 'placement'. A term that can refer to both real and imagined or perceived places and classifications. somersaulting man, 2001-2004, an installation of four videos shows public squares in Istanbul, Frankfurt, Tokyo and Paris, across which a man beating a purple tree moves. Even if the reactions of the bystanders to this childlike-anarchistic behavior vary almost uniformly between incredulous astonishment and complete disregard, one is tempted to discover cultural differences. In the video The puddle and the blue sky, 2001, a parking lot can be seen in which a person, the artist himself, dressed only in swimming trunks, is lying on his back in a large puddle. The relaxed movements of his outstretched arms create gentle ripples in the water and suggest a sense of well-being. However, the intimacy of this bathing scene is strangely at odds with the public nature of the square and the potential danger of being run over by a car. Nasan Tur's self-portrait, 2000, shows his current German identity card, for whose passport photo he has grown a moustache. The moustache that is clichédly associated with 'the Turk' in Germany. This work very subtly questions not only personal or collective identity, but also the reduction of people to their official data that is inherent in the identity card. The video a place, 2004, shows an anonymous place in the network of urbanity. With a little shrubbery, an effort has been made to create nature between the express train line and the highway. Brought to life - did we see correctly? - this is brought to life by the artist's intervention. Nasan Tur has created a light installation for the square in front of the Kunstverein, the neo-classical Neumarkt. Schein, 2005, allows small points of light to wander across this highly prestigious, but basically little frequented place after dark. They playfully scan the expanse of the square and discover, in the true sense of the word, the individual people who animate it. A surprising experience that may make some nocturnal walkers uncomfortable, but which above all sensitizes them to the potential of this square and encourages an imaginative approach to it.

 1974 born in Offenbach, Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach; Städelschule, Frankfurt a.M. with Ayse Erkmen. Exhibitions include 1999 from 0-1 and back again, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt a.M., 2000 Identity, Deutsche Bank exhibition tour, Frankfurt a.M., New York, London and Tokyo (K), 2001 Testsieger, Kommunale Galerie, Darmstadt (E), 2002 Under The Beach: The Pavement, Museum of Contemporary Art, Istanbul, 2003 Blut und Honig, Sammlung Essl-Kunst der Gegenwart, Vienna (K); Neresi?/Burasi? Museum of Modern Art, Saitama/Japan (K); I'am too sad to kill you!, Museum of Contemporary Art, Istanbul (K), 2004 Junge Kunst, Saarlandmuseum, Saarbrücken and others (K); Brothers and Sisters and Birds, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe (K); Das erinnerte Haus, Museum Folkwang, Essen; Phase 1, Museum of Modern Art, Istanbul, lives in Frankfurt am Main.