Nasan Tur, Blain | Southern

Blain | Southern gallery presents an interesting new show from German artist Nasan Tur, who first caught our attention at Whitechapel Artist’s Film International Summer 2013 season when he sprayed hundreds of graffiti slogans over the top of each other to block out any remnants of language. Now back at Blain | Southern, Hanover Square for his second solo show, Tur returns to the subjects of political ideologies and symbols of power within the overarching themes of failure and fragility. Tur explores the idea that failing and winning are not flipsides of the same coin, but actually both active states of possibility.
Nasan Tur: Blain | Southern highlights
In all of the works on display you’ll find vulnerability and brittleness. Look out for First Shot (2014), a slowed down video work of people shooting a firearm for the first time, so that each action becomes monumental. In another video work, In My Pants (2015), a static man gazes calmly out at the viewer as his jeans slowly darken, and we realise that he has lost control of his bladder. This unnerving scene leaves us wondering whether this really happened or not? There are also a number of statues inspired by classical Roman antiques, where arms and legs have been snapped off. Tur also ventures into text, reducing copies of Karl Marx’s ‘Das Kapital I, II, III’ to pulp and producing new blank documents. Across the whole floor of the gallery, the sculpture Crisis (2014) seems to have just crashed to the ground, its amber light solemnly pulsating with an amber glow.
Another curious contemporary art exhibition from trend setters Harry Blain & Graham Southern.