In Past Show

Nasan Tur: At Your Own____. at Blain | Southern

In a diverse practice that ranges from sculpture, drawing, video, and photography to performance and installation, Nasan Tur examines social conditions, probing the relationship between production and value and modes of communication. In his sculptures Demo Kits Deluxe (2009), Tur references an earlier project, Demo Kits, where viewers were invited to dispense the works—consisting of objects such as spray paint and protest banners—from vending machines placed in public spaces. The deluxe version is constructed using precious metals, rare hardwoods and luxurious satins, suggesting the capitalist tendency to commodify countercultural actions. In Variationen von Kapital (2013), Tur presents a site-specific installation comprising approximately 800 seemingly identical drawings spelling out the word “Kapital,” but each spelling is slightly different. To produce the drawings Tur relies on a process that constructs a relationship between mass production and handcraft; a computer selects a spelling from one of 40,000 possible options; the artist then meticulously paints each onto hand-torn Tibetan paper using Indian ink.