[ SABOTAZ 80 ]: Nasan Tur: "Komunismus Soziallismus Kapietalismus"

Today the gf and I stumbled into Nasan Tur's (cv) exhibition at Tanas by accident: we were asking directions to a Bill Viola exhibition (Bill Viola "Transfiguration", Haunch of Venison, Heidestrasse 46, www.haunchofvenison.com) and decided to have a look around. I remembered seeing reviews in several magazines and at least someone I know personally held Nasan Tur in pretty high regard.
He seems to enjoy taking jabs at society either by supplying willing marchers with subversive backpacks, or by providing those who always wanted to make a point with a speaker system, or simply by continuously summersaulting in crowed spaces. He also appears to be very fond of bad spelling and taking the occasional bath in a puddle.

Taking photos was kindly allowed by the gallery so here are a few examples.

"Time for Revollusion" (2008)

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"Komunismus Soziallismus Kapietalismus" (2008)
Oddly enough even though all three words are obviously spelled wrong I found it hard to actually spot the errors once I was facing the rather huge letters.

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"Speaker-Backpack, Cooking-Backpack, Demonstration-Backpack, Sabotage-Backpack, Fan-Backpack" (2006)

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"Passport" (2000)
I really like this one (quote from the website):
"Applying for a German passport, Nasan Tur let his mustache grow over several months, fitting the cliche of the Turk in Germany. This small alteration in his appearance led to a complete change in perception of and reaction to him from the outside world in his daily life. In the circles in which he normally moved he was suddenly no longer welcome, was seen more an embarassment, and from a female point of view, unsexy, whereas he was greeted with "Salem Aleykum" when walking past Turkish cafes and reaped
enthusiastic compliments from aunts and uncles. Nasan Tur had a photo taken with his Turkish mustache and gave it to the authorities for his German passport. Now Tur is the owner of a German passport with
a photo of a cliche-Turk, which he actually is not. Tur thematizes in this work how far one is pushed into certain socially defined identities which one must then fullfil. The German passport that accompanies him on his travels presents him thus at each passport control."