“FIRST SHOT”

Nasan Tur shows a series of works that have developed over the last years as well as newly produced pieces that will have their primer on Møn. Kunsthal 44 Møen offers therewith the first comprehensive solo exhibition by Tur in Denmark who has was not at last awarded the prestigious Villa Massimo Award to live and work in Rom for one year – an honor few artists received since its inauguration in 1913.
From Tur’s recent video works Kunsthal 44 Møen shows the video installation First Shot. The work shows people using a gun for the first time in their life. Despite the loud sound experience once the trigger is pulled, it is probably the gestures and reactions of the portrayed that are most striking. Played in slow motion we become close witnesses on how each person’s state of being changes before and after they having fired a gun.
The video Magic (2013) picks up on the artists interest on the trickster and its entanglement with politics and capitalism. In this intriguing video piece two gloved hands perform various magical tricks before a black background. We are reminded of similar scenes we have see as children or on TV, yet Tur’s tricks catch us through their slight variations to the originals we know. Not only is the conversion of a dollar bill through a three plied folding to a 100 dollar bill a trickster operation, it reminds one inevitably also of the exponential profiting of stock markets over the last decades that culminated most recently in a credit bubble in the United Stated that led to the financial crises of 2009: money was made to more money out of nothing.
Amongst the new productions that is on display for the first time at 44 Møen is a series of what Tur calls “police paintings”. These grey mural paintings are based on existing police attempts to erase political and socially engaged writings around the Gezi park protests in Istanbul from 2013. Many urban landscapes worldwide show similar large format abstract paintings done by authorities that are often as illegal as the first ones. Ironically one cannot know what or if something was written under them originally at all. The police’s attempt to erase traces leave new traces again and become part of the battle for the city’s facades.

Tur’s great ability to fuse the political with light and witty aesthetics remains unchallenged in its strength, humor and poignancy. Tur’s rising carrier of the last years with numerous institutional shows has left audiences moved and smiling at the same time – which is what Kunsthal 44 Møen is looking forward to bring to the island of Møn for spring 2014.

The exhibition is supported by Statens Kunstråd og Vordingborg kommune