Nora Turato
° 1991, Zagreb (HR) – lives and works in Amsterdam (NL)
Nora Turato reflects on the hectic (internet) culture of today. In her work, she explores language as a signifier that is constantly changing and tries, through a non-stop process of reinterpretation, to organise and organise our culture and world so that we can relate to it.
Using various but closely interwoven media, Turato is building a practice in which she plays with the speed of language and the ready-made vocabulary of the Internet. Similar to Pop Art artists in the 1960s, Turato researches and reinterprets contemporary popular (internet) culture. In this way she not only develops a new relationship with consumer goods (as Pop Art did), but also with political and cultural opinions – for example about the role of women and what is expected of them in society.
Turato’s basic material is text. At first sight, these texts seem to be a seemingly random collection of sentences and a cacophony of different voices. Her texts originate from a multitude of sources and are actually a collection of appropriated words, sentences, text fragments and quotes from film, advertising, literature, chat conversations, theatre, and social media. These are bundled in temporary cycles covering a year each time. The artist himself calls these cycles pools, and says that “each pool reflects not only the cultural climate and what is happening in the world, but also who I am dealing with and how I spend my time”.
Nora Turato - if you don’t mind, why don’t you mind , 2018
Nora Turato - the things you worry about aren’t supposed to happen that’s what worry does worry works, 2018
Nora Turato - you watched it without me !!!, 2018
Nora Turato - it will take up hardly any of your time – virtually none, in fact. what do you say , 2018
Nora Turato - we prefer our bottles with no messages inside, 2018
Nora Turato - Pool 1 (artist book), 2017
Nora Turato - Pool 2 (artist book), 2018
Nora Turato - Pool 3 (artist book), 2019
Nora Turato processes these text pools in different ways. Fragments find their way into posters and prints with aesthetic references to the utilitarian graphic design of the post-socialist 1990s in Croatia – where she grew up, the text works of the American artist Barbara Kruger, or the warnings on cigarette packets. Each year she also makes an artist’s book that collects all the text from a pool. But Nora Turato is best known for her conjuring ghost-word performances. These are meticulously scripted, edited and adapted in advance until the rhythm, cadence and speed of the performance is perfectly in sync with the text. Turato’s acrobatic voice covers a whole gala of vocal forms, and oscillates between high, girlish singing reminiscent of radio jingles, bizarre gibberish, shouting stutter, shrill shouts, and monotonous monologues – sometimes even in different languages.
Nora Turato exhibited her work internationally at Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein; Beursschouwburg, Brussels; Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen; Luma Foundation, Zurich; Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; Bielefelder Kunstverein; CIAP, Hasselt; Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit; Manifesta 12, Palermo; MUMOK, Vienna. In the near future Tirato will have solo exhibitions at Serralves Museum, Porto; Philara Collection, Düsseldorf; and Centre Pompidou, Paris.
Nora Turato is represented by the following galleries;
click through to discover more of her work.
You can also see more of Nora Turato’s work on her own website.
Nora Turato - Performance at Beursschouwburg, Brussels in 2018
Nora Turato - Installation view, Wow this huge wooden horse is great, at Centre Pompidou, Paris in 2020
Nora Turato - Exhibition view, Scripts, Bielefelder Kunstverein in 2018
Exhibition view, Risquons-Tout, WIELS, Brussels, 2020
Nora Turato - Exhibition view of Warp and Woof at Gregor Staiger, Zurich in 2019
Nora Turato - Installation view of MGKWALLS, Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen, in 2020-2021
Nora Turato - Performance, i’m happy to own my implicit biases (malo mrkva, malo batina), Manifesta 12, Palermo in 2018
Nora Turato - Exhibition view of what do you make of this? did you make this up?, at Sammlung Philara, Düsseldorf in 2020
Nora Turato - Exhibition view of eto ti na, at MGLC – International Centre of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana in 2020
