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Navid Nurr - Renderender

Dundee Contemporary Arts
March 29th-June 15
Permanent transience is a way of being for Navid Nurr, the 
Dutch/Iranian auteur who takes over DCA with an epic array of work that 
co-opts the temporary detritus of everyday life into a series of 
constructions that provoke as much as they play with the material to 
hand. In what he describes as an ongoing set of 'interimodules', a 
conflation of 'interim' and 'modules' that defines a state of 
impermanence beyond easy pigeon-holing, Nurr utilises an array of 
wheelie bins, water coolers, emergency blankets, slide projectors and 
the like to make deeply personal expressions riven from a very private 
world.

“The art world is the only place where people listen to someone's 
personal and private language,” he says.”

For his second ever UK solo show, and his largest in a public space to 
date, Nurr presents key works, including 'When doubt turns into 
destiny' (1993-2011), a surveillance video in which Nurr attempts to 
evade detection  by the security lights in Berlin's avenues and 
alleyways; and 'City Soil' (2009-2014), a 1,100 litre street bin filled 
with the ashes of the rubbish created in the making of the show. These 
will sit alongside new work inspired by Dundee and the DCA site itself 
as a former hub for the local skate-boarding community, and using found 
film footage from the era. As a former skater himself who came out of 
the graffiti art scene, Nurr recognises the world all too well.

“I wasn't that good,” he reflects, “but I loved it so much that I 
didn't finish high school because of it. It wasn't just about the 
tricks, but more about being part of a community. Back in the 90s, 
no-one would support it, but when you were skating, you saw the world 
 from a different angle. Not just the architecture, but at yourself as 
well.”

The List, March 2014

ends






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