Categories
Subjects
Authors
Artists
Venues
Locations
Calendar
Filter
Done
November 14, 2013 – Review
Adrian Ghenie and Navid Nuur’s “On the Road to … Tarascon”
Judith Vrancken
Two artists stand in a studio. One holds a brush, the other a microphone. Romanian painter Adrian Ghenie(1) feverishly walks back and forth between the canvas and his palette and seems completely undisturbed by the pervasive vocal interpretations Dutch-Iranian artist Navid Nuur makes of his rude brushstrokes. This work, The Possibility of Purple (2013), documents the making of five paintings in five separate videos, all approximately thirty minutes in length. Everything is shot from the same angle. Ghenie taps, draws, throws, and smears thick layers of red and blue paint on the canvas while Nuur growls, howls, and occasionally creates cartoon-esque “blub!” noises in response to each of Ghenie’s gestures. Yes, it’s very entertaining to watch, but above all, the extensive film turns out to be the key piece in this elaborate, two-person exhibition “On the Road to … Tarascon” at Galeria Plan B, which encompasses painting, video, performance, and sound. Transformed into a small replica of the video scene, the gallery space incorporates one of the paintings from the video series on the back wall; the microphone and Marshall amplifier that Nuur used is positioned to its left, and Ghenie’s white paint-mixing stand to the right.
For an exhibition that …