Nora Turato's 'NOT YOUR USUAL SELF?' Exhibition at Sprüth Magers Berlin Explores Language and Self-Help

Nora Turato's exhibition 'NOT YOUR USUAL SELF?' at Sprüth Magers in Berlin runs from 16 September to 7 November 2023. The Croatia-born, Amsterdam-based artist presents five glossy enamel-painted multipanelled works featuring text in a custom serif font designed with Sam de Groot and Kia Tasbihgou. These panels, such as 'not yourself? what have you done to yourself?' (2023), layer black grids over backgrounds with cherry-red circles, creating a bulging effect. A site-specific wall painting in royal blue letters reads 'UNDEFINE YOURSELF', hand-painted using bespoke stencils to erase evidence of the body. The works blend self-help language with vintage corporate tech aesthetics, using color and font to manipulate inflection. Turato, a trained graphic designer, explores the pain and fear of our dysfunctional linguistic era, referencing texting and Twitter/X. The exhibition confronts themes of meaninglessness and constant transition, with imagery prioritizing uncertain movement. The panels symbolically venture into unknown depths, mixing rationality and high-tech sheen with personal questions. Viewers are caught in a corridor with an obscured future, reflecting on modernism and the collective mind. The show captures the rapidity of online life, where questioning and affirming voices overlap. Turato's warning 'WATCH YOUR HEAD' underscores the exhibition's probing nature.