Nora Turato’s Text-Based Artworks Probe Into How Language Shapes Our Collective Unconscious
In an age dominated by visual stimuli, her new Sprüth Magers exhibition ruminates on the interplay between words and images.
Nora Turato is a Croatian artist and graphic designer who probes into the volatility of language. Based in Amsterdam, she utilizes text messages, advertisements, social media captions, mundane email sign-offs and sundry information that inundate everyday life as artistic materials to comment on what collectively moves society.
In a new solo exhibition at Sprüth Magers Los Angeles, Turato is showcasing her latest series of video installations and wall works entitled pool 6, which dissects the relationship between words and their meaning, as well as the socio-political underpinnings that are used in marketing strategies and colloquial speech. At the entrance to the gallery, the words authenticity haha (2024) are plastered in white lowercase lettering on two adjacent walls, subtly making note of how the general public tends to unconsciously laugh off serious issues and uncomfortable topics. Running parallel to the preceding work, Turato makes a dig at the commercialization of individuality and self-help through a vibrant mural, rendered in a light blue base, with a rigid black typeface that reads become pointless (2024).
As it becomes very clear when observing her work, Turato laughs at the notion of authorship commonly expected of anyone working in the creative industry. “This is a thing that the art world does — it presents us with the idea that we as artists always know what we’re doing,” she said in a past interview. “I’m not in control at all,” she added. On the second floor, a new video installation presents an interplay of words overlaid on disparate imagery, tied together by Turato’s voice, as she guides visitors into the public’s psyche, the monetization of self-help and sucesss, as well the pseudoscience marketing that reflects the times.
it’s not true!!! stop lying! will be on view in Los Angeles until April 27.
Sprüth Magers
5900 Wilshire Blvd,
Los Angeles, CA 90036
