Artist Talk: Navid Nuur x Fatos Üstek
2 October 2024
8:00 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.
Curator Fatos Üstek in conversation with Navid Nuur about his exhibition
Curator Fatos Üstek will engage in a conversation with Navid Nuur about his work and the ideas behind his exhibition When Doubt Turns into Destiny at the Oude Kerk. Following the discussion, the exhibition will be open to visitors until 10:00 pm. The conversation will be in English.
In his exhibition at the Oude Kerk, Navid Nuur (born 1976, Tehran) peels back the dynamics of time to create physical experiences that explore earth, water, air, and scent. For Nuur, the world around him is never something to be taken for granted; there is always something to question and rediscover. He wants to see something that exists but that no one has noticed yet, and he uses that as the foundation for his art. With his materials, he aims to make the viewer look and think differently. According to the artist, the highest goal of an artwork is to provide tools at an exhibition that enable people to view the world in a new way. His work will be on display at the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam for another century.
When Doubt Turns into Destiny embodies the idea that humans, despite all their knowledge and skills, are transient beings who exist far less than they do not.
Fatos Üstek (based in London) will lead the conversation. Üstek is an influential voice in the international contemporary art world. Since 2023, she has been the curator of Frieze Sculpture in London, working with leading international artists. Üstek recently published The Art Institute of Tomorrow, Reinventing the Model, which explores a new model for art organisations. She directed the 11th Liverpool Biennial in the UK and the 10th Gwangju Biennale in South Korea. She was also the commissioner for public art projects (Do Ho Suh, London, 2018–20). Over the past ten years, Üstek has served multiple times as a jury member for art awards (Turner Prize 2020) and international representations (Netherlands in Venice, 2022). She is the chair of the New Contemporaries foundation, serves on the Advisory Committee of the Jan van Eyck Academie, and is an editorial advisor and editor for Extra Extra Magazine, Rotterdam.
