Wednesday 10 June 2009

Identity between two cultures: Nasan Tur’s Selfportrait (2000) and Somersaulting man (work in progress since 2001)

(contribution by Suzanne)

Selfportrait has a long tradition in western culture. For his Selfportrait (2000) Nasan Tur produced a photograph for his Identity Card – an item that lies on the border of private and public, individual and government. The German Identity Card shows the photograph of a young man with moustache, apparently fitting to the Turkish name inscribed near it... But fact is that Nasan Tur , German artist of Turkish origin, constructed the whole making of the new photograph for his new official document: „When I applied for a German passport I grew a moustache for a few months which would better reflect the stereotype of the Turk in Germany. This small alteration on my face had a great impact on my daily life in Germany and the people´s reactions to my appearance changed completely. In the circles where I usally hung out I suddenly became unpopular, I was negatively judged and considered not sexy by the women, while on the contrary I was greeted with a kind "Salem Aleykum" when I passed by the Turkish and Arab cafes and gained enthusiastic compliments from my uncles and aunties.
With this Turkish moustache I had my photograph taken and I passed it on to the authorities for the issuing of the passport. Now I am the owner of a German passport with a picture that conforms to the cliché of the typical Turk but that in reality has nothing to do with me.“


Nasan Tur captured on his passport the whole experience of how interpretations about his person varied due to what was only an apparently blatant socio-cultural and partisan affiliation. Comparing presumed Turkish and German cultures and their basic precepts, Nasan Tur examines the subject of identity and its social implications.
According to Nasan Tur this work has obviously many facettes: it is (and intended to be) funny and ironic, but serious and critical at the same time.
He had much fun letting grow the „turkish moustache“, being also aware of a clear change and increasing process of exclusion from his own circles and friends. Now it is also very funny for him showing the passport to friends...but it makes him much less laugh when he has to use the same ID Card for border controls, as he is nearly always automatically judged as suspicious and asked to be inspected and frisked in specifical rooms...

By changing a small but distinctive physical detail, Nasan Tur experienced how other people’s perception of him became to change. The moustache, common feature amongst men in the Middle-East, becomes a distinctive mark in Europe. Inversely, the lack of moustache in Europe helps him to be easily integrated in Germany, while marginalizing him in the family circle. This slight change in the appearance of his face becomes an alteration for some and a sign of recognition for others.

The passport, indeniable official german document, shows the picture of a presumed „typical“ turkish man. And in this way Nasan Tur’s Selfportrait expresses the impact of stereotypes and traditions on different cultures. His German passport shows a face with a moustache, which is not really his, since this hair growht is merely anecdotic. A passport, tool of altered, heterogenic significance when we are abroad, is at the same time what defines identity in the eyes of a nation. In a very humorous way, Nasan Tur demonstrates well that identity depends mostly on other forms, namely contact with others and reception on their part of the signs we send out to them. It is others who decide whether we belong in their community or whether we are not worthy, regardless of the formality of documents.





Nasan Tur’s interest in socio-cultural inter-communities appears even more humourosly in the piece „Somersaulting man“(work in progress since 2001) which, conceived as a form of continuous culture study, shows a man somersaulting through different cities: Presumed to be a universal of unspecific culture and always foreign way of moving, the passers-by, confronted with the rapid somersualts of a grown man, react similarly in each of the citiies: amused and bewildered, apprehensive and inquisitive, as well as sceptical looks that doubt the metal stability of the tumbling man, follow the protagonist his way through the streets and squares of paris or Istanbul, Frankfurt or Tokyo.
The enjoyable absurdity of the childlike, playful somersaults, passing in front of the stationary camera and set against the functioning metropolis, can flip easily into a questionable action at the thought of the physical strain and the feeling of the rough tarmac on his back and shoulders. The somersaulting man is an only partially ironic symbol for anything considered different, with wich Nasan Tur explores the boundaries between the normal and abnormal, offering a positive approach to the ways of dealing with alleged non-functioning in society.

Sources:

Nasan Tur. Nichts geht mehr, Exhibition Catalogue, Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden January – May 2006.

Crossings. A contemporary view, Exhibition Catalogue, Nicosia Municipal Art Centre & Pierides Foundation, March – May 2007

Nasan Tur. Komunismus Sozialismus Kapietalismus, Exhibition Catalogue, Tanas Berlin, November 2008 – January 2009.

Email correspondence with Nasan Tur, January 2009