Navid Nuur’s practice – which has been awarded several prizes in recent years – sets important questions of form and content of younger artists at a tangent: the relationships between sculpture and performativity, between poetry and science and between abstraction and sensuousness.
In his first solo exhibition at a Swiss institution Nuur is mainly showing new works which are concerned with shifts in thoughts, material, experience and artistic practice. He creates a ‘parallel’ world in the Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen and shows its innumerable possibilities for the generation of poetic moments with everyday materials. Our various senses (smell, touch, hearing and sight) as well as other forms of perception such as reading and walking play an important role in the reception of his works. «Post parallelism» is conceived as a system which generates internal references and itself becomes content. Full of small humorous gestures on the one hand and spectacular expansive installations on the other, this exhibition will remain in the memory of Kunst Halle visitors as a unique experience.
For example, Nuur moves the majority of the neon tube ceiling lighting from the first exhibition room to the last hall and sculpturally recombines them there; or he gives the title 'Forest with no view' to two large transport crates with a strong smell of wood and transforms them into a passageway for visitors. Besides such larger interventions into the Kunst Halle premises Nuur is showing very different works which repeatedly show up the relationships between macro and microcosmos. In simple but impressive ways he thus demonstrates the possibilities of art which – like no other form of expression – can create magic moments of revelation.
«Post Parallelism» is accompanied by an artist’s book which has been created in cooperation with Mousse Publishing (*). It brings together a selection of souvenir photos in which, out of boredom, museum visitors recreate artworks with the artist’s Polaroid pictures in his studio, just as he imitates his own works.
(*) The book launch of «Bored at the Museum, Bored at the Studio» takes place at Motto Zurich Store (Perla-Mode, Langstrasse 84, 8004 Zurich). www.mottozurich.com, www.perla-mode.net
Thursday, 10 February 2011, 7.30 p.m.
«Post Parallelism» is supported by Mondriaan Stichting (Mondriaan Foundation). Special thanks to Leica Microsystems (Switzerland) AG.
Book launch Navid Nuur ‹Bored at the Museum, Bored at the Studio›: Thu, 10 February 2011, 8.30 p.m.
Opening: Fri, 11 February, 6 p.m.
Guided tours: Tue, 1 March, 6.30 p.m. and Sun, 10 April, 3 p.m.
Art Lunch: Thu, 17 March, 12 a.m.
Navid Nuur (*1976, Teheran, lives and works in The Hague) studied at Pietzwart Institute in Rotterdam as well as at Plymouth University, England. Solo exhibitions of the artist took place at the following galleries and institutions: Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven; Galeria Plan B, Cluj; De Hallen museum, Haarlem (2010); Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel; Duplex/10m2, Sarajevo; S.M.A.K, Gent; Galeria Klerkx, Milan; Martin van Zomeren, Amsterdam (2009); Fries Museum, Leeuwarden; Stroom, The Hague (2008); Moria Art Gallery, Utrecht (2007). Further, he participated in various group exhibitions, amongst them at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; MARTa Herford Museum, Herford; Arter, Istanbul; David Roberts Art Foundation, London; Kunsthaus Glarus; Stroom, The Hague; Galeria Plan B, Berlin (2010); De Hallen Museum, Haarlem; Seiler + Mosseri-Marlio Gallery, Zurich; Hoet Bekaert Gallery, Gent (2009); Museum of Modern Art Arnhem; The Armory Show/Galeria Plan B, New York; DCR, The Hague; Mariakapel, Hoorn (2008); Billy town, Rijswijk; DCR Project Space, The Hague; Ned. Cacaofabriek, Helmond (2007). 2010 Navid Nuur was awarded the Charlotte Köhler Prijs as well as the Volkskrant Culture prize.