Navid Nuur, THRESHOLDER, 2007-2008, hand shaped oasis blocks. Courtesy: Martin van Zomeren, Plan-B.
KASSEL.- Navid Nuur (born in Teheran in 1976) refers to his works as interimodules and not sculptures or installations. In his view, the latter are too immobile and rigid to form the desired spatial and temporal link with their environment and the viewer. For the same reason, Nuur rejects the term site specific, which is often applied to his work. Instead, he choses the term interimodules composed of the words interim and module to describe the envisaged intermediate area. With module Navid Nuur draws a connection to his way of thinking and conceptualisation, while he uses the word interim to allude to the space and the limited temporal period, thus highlighting above all the processual character of his works.
The relationship between the artistic concept and the form also plays a key role for him. While the form sometimes has to be subordinated to the conceptual idea, it is never only the result of it. Rather, the form develops through artistic specifications or rules in which, for Nuur, intuition is a decisive factor. The relatively simple structure of his works and the choice of virtually trivial materials, which are usually taken from everyday life, including wax, floral arrangement foam blocks, Polaroid photographs, food, a rubbish container and packaging materials, taken from past shows or from the museal institutions, are part of his artistic set of rules. In addition, Navid Nuur always closely links his works and their titles, thus stressing the context and the thematic statement. A graphic example of this is the work I am just an idea between the tape and the wall (2008), which consists of a piece of yellow adhesive tape attached to the wall whose title can be read on the back, in the area between the wall and the adhesive tape.
For his solo exhibition at the Kunsthalle Fridericianum Navid Nuur will present a comprehensive ensemble of his interimodules, which with their variety invite the viewer to delve into his artistic world of thought in the in-between realm. The works on view will include Vein of Venus II (2008), which concurrently focuses on the relation between a micro and a macro world. Let us meet inside you (2006-2009) is a work which Nuur redeveloped for THE VALUE OF VOID at the Fridericianum. The work originally consisted of a water dispenser, where a notebook, in which the words let us meet inside you were written, was attached to the water tank by a belt of the artist. While looking through the water tank the words could be espied by the viewer. In Kassel this work will consist of a wall composed of 7000 water bottles in crates. These will be filled with Kassel water from a tap which in turn comes from Navid Nuur's studio. As a result, this work additionally takes on the character of a long-term performance. This wall stands across from a wall composed of floral arrangement foam blocks. At the top and on the outside edges, Navid Nuur puts dents with his own fingers in the material, thus he is leaving more and more emotional marks on the rational block, according to the artist.
Furthermore, the work Citysoil and Tentacle Thought Nr. 5 will be on display. The neon piece Tentacle Thought was created in relation to Nuurs show in Berlin, and its moving to another venue depends on the special conditions of the exhibition space in the matter of light and material as the artist explains: seeing light as a matter and not just as light, which can display an artwork better.
Navid Nuur |
THE VALUE OF VOID |