Navid Nuur
01 - 30 May 2015
© Navid Nuur
Untitled (Let us meet inside you), 2005–2015
tap from artist’s studio, water, bottles, stamps, capper, crates
variable dimensions
Untitled (Let us meet inside you), 2005–2015
tap from artist’s studio, water, bottles, stamps, capper, crates
variable dimensions
NAVID NUUR
Mining Memory
1 – 30 May 2015
Galerie Max Hetzler is delighted to announce a solo exhibition by Navid Nuur, opening during Gallery Weekend Berlin 2015. Nuur’s new project, entitled MINING MEMORY, will unconventionally take place in two different venues in Berlin: Plan B and Galerie Max Hetzler. Visitors will have the chance to experience new perspectives on the multi-positional, and in this case, multi-dimensional practice of Nuur, which is represented in both galleries through a different set of works.
At the core of Nuur’s exhibitions is a new fictional interview with a rock, which follows previous chapters of his text-based works like interview with water and the black color. This almost Platonic text makes the present constellation of Nuur’s works, which he calls interimodules, appear as monoliths, questioning the definition of timelessness in relation of artworks to the world in which they can be found. Nuur’s MINING MEMORY cycle is the most objective in artistic goals so far as it attempts to create a system out of his oeuvre which is mentally self-sustaining, making sense without human creative interpretation or misinterpretation, imbuing his work with a logic that makes us face eternity.
The new works of Nuur, as the title already suggests, are the most plastic and sculptural works yet from his otherwise ethereal repertoire. Nuur’s work references stones and rocks from a very open perspective, sometimes approaching the topic within the context of mountain climbing, and in other cases, alchemy. His work also combines different minerals to create hybrids. For instance, a recent work, ‘Rerocked', melted all types of stones which can be found on Earth into one single rock. Other mineral forms, including fossils, graphite, gold and even materials relating to dinosaurs, are also featured in the exhibition. For instance, the evolution of dinosaurs into chickens is another geochronological timespan compressed into the exhibition, featured in a video about the chickens who were hypnotized by the exactness of the lines of Mondrian. Nuur also uses magnetic rocks as process sculpture in the show and will exhibit recent definitive and relational works, including a reflector panel which has a million virtual faces defined by the flashlight of your smartphone.
The new chapter of Navid Nuur’s oeuvre complements his eye-dazzling visual universe and is still researching principal tactile, vocal, visual and conceptual ties between people and objects with DIY experiments, language games and paradoxes. MINING MEMORY is an exhibition that feeds from the past and prototypes the future, informed by the artist, who retrospectively seems to have been experimenting in the forge of his studio with abstract patternology, participatory acts and an almost undefinable use of materials, media and documentation much before Post-Internet art was on the rise.
The exhibition text was written by Budapest based writer and curator Áron Fenyvesi.
At the same time, Galerie Max Hetzler will inaugurate a solo exhibition with new paintings by Ida Ekblad at Bleibtreustrasse 45.
Navid Nuur was born in Teheran, Iran (1976) and currently lives and works in The Hague, Netherlands. Nuur studied at the Hogeschool vor de Kunsten (HKU), Utrecht (1999 – 2001), Pietzwart Institute, Rotterdam (2002 – 2003) and Plymouth University (2002 – 2004). Selected solo exhibitions include THE MAIN REMAIN, Galerie Max Hetzler, Paris; RENDERENDER, DCA Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee; COLOR ME CLOSELY, Trafó House of Contemporary Arts, Budapest (all 2014); TREASURED TENSIONS, Club Electroputere - Centre for Contemporary Culture, Bucharest; LUBE LOVE, Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht; PHANTOM FUEL, Parasol Unit, London and TRACK&TRACE, Watersnoodmuseum, Ouwerkerk (all 2013); BERGAMO, Heden, The Hague and HOCUS FOCUS, Matadero, Madrid (2012); and POST PARALLELISM, Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, St. Gallen (2011). Nuur's work forms part of renowned collections, such as the Centre Pompidou – Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris; the S.M.A.K., Ghent; Koç, Istanbul and De Hallen Museum, Haarlem.
Nuur has also been recently commissioned to create a new sculpture to be placed in front of the International Criminal Court’s new building in The Hague. The stainless steel sculpture will echo the ICC structure, reflecting weather conditions as well as offering different sights depending on the angle from which it is viewed. The shape of the sculpture is directly inspired by the microscopic modelling of a human tear mixed with water from a local spring. ICC‘s new premises will be situated in the former site of the Alexander Military Barracks on the border of The Hague and the Meijendel dune landscape. Nuur was also the recipient of the Discovery Prize at Art Basel Hong Kong with Adrian Ghenie in 2013.
Mining Memory
1 – 30 May 2015
Galerie Max Hetzler is delighted to announce a solo exhibition by Navid Nuur, opening during Gallery Weekend Berlin 2015. Nuur’s new project, entitled MINING MEMORY, will unconventionally take place in two different venues in Berlin: Plan B and Galerie Max Hetzler. Visitors will have the chance to experience new perspectives on the multi-positional, and in this case, multi-dimensional practice of Nuur, which is represented in both galleries through a different set of works.
At the core of Nuur’s exhibitions is a new fictional interview with a rock, which follows previous chapters of his text-based works like interview with water and the black color. This almost Platonic text makes the present constellation of Nuur’s works, which he calls interimodules, appear as monoliths, questioning the definition of timelessness in relation of artworks to the world in which they can be found. Nuur’s MINING MEMORY cycle is the most objective in artistic goals so far as it attempts to create a system out of his oeuvre which is mentally self-sustaining, making sense without human creative interpretation or misinterpretation, imbuing his work with a logic that makes us face eternity.
The new works of Nuur, as the title already suggests, are the most plastic and sculptural works yet from his otherwise ethereal repertoire. Nuur’s work references stones and rocks from a very open perspective, sometimes approaching the topic within the context of mountain climbing, and in other cases, alchemy. His work also combines different minerals to create hybrids. For instance, a recent work, ‘Rerocked', melted all types of stones which can be found on Earth into one single rock. Other mineral forms, including fossils, graphite, gold and even materials relating to dinosaurs, are also featured in the exhibition. For instance, the evolution of dinosaurs into chickens is another geochronological timespan compressed into the exhibition, featured in a video about the chickens who were hypnotized by the exactness of the lines of Mondrian. Nuur also uses magnetic rocks as process sculpture in the show and will exhibit recent definitive and relational works, including a reflector panel which has a million virtual faces defined by the flashlight of your smartphone.
The new chapter of Navid Nuur’s oeuvre complements his eye-dazzling visual universe and is still researching principal tactile, vocal, visual and conceptual ties between people and objects with DIY experiments, language games and paradoxes. MINING MEMORY is an exhibition that feeds from the past and prototypes the future, informed by the artist, who retrospectively seems to have been experimenting in the forge of his studio with abstract patternology, participatory acts and an almost undefinable use of materials, media and documentation much before Post-Internet art was on the rise.
The exhibition text was written by Budapest based writer and curator Áron Fenyvesi.
At the same time, Galerie Max Hetzler will inaugurate a solo exhibition with new paintings by Ida Ekblad at Bleibtreustrasse 45.
Navid Nuur was born in Teheran, Iran (1976) and currently lives and works in The Hague, Netherlands. Nuur studied at the Hogeschool vor de Kunsten (HKU), Utrecht (1999 – 2001), Pietzwart Institute, Rotterdam (2002 – 2003) and Plymouth University (2002 – 2004). Selected solo exhibitions include THE MAIN REMAIN, Galerie Max Hetzler, Paris; RENDERENDER, DCA Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee; COLOR ME CLOSELY, Trafó House of Contemporary Arts, Budapest (all 2014); TREASURED TENSIONS, Club Electroputere - Centre for Contemporary Culture, Bucharest; LUBE LOVE, Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht; PHANTOM FUEL, Parasol Unit, London and TRACK&TRACE, Watersnoodmuseum, Ouwerkerk (all 2013); BERGAMO, Heden, The Hague and HOCUS FOCUS, Matadero, Madrid (2012); and POST PARALLELISM, Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, St. Gallen (2011). Nuur's work forms part of renowned collections, such as the Centre Pompidou – Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris; the S.M.A.K., Ghent; Koç, Istanbul and De Hallen Museum, Haarlem.
Nuur has also been recently commissioned to create a new sculpture to be placed in front of the International Criminal Court’s new building in The Hague. The stainless steel sculpture will echo the ICC structure, reflecting weather conditions as well as offering different sights depending on the angle from which it is viewed. The shape of the sculpture is directly inspired by the microscopic modelling of a human tear mixed with water from a local spring. ICC‘s new premises will be situated in the former site of the Alexander Military Barracks on the border of The Hague and the Meijendel dune landscape. Nuur was also the recipient of the Discovery Prize at Art Basel Hong Kong with Adrian Ghenie in 2013.