Timo Nasseri
O time thy pyramids_OM
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| Year | 2020 |
|---|---|
| Medium | White ink and pencil on pigmented paper |
| Dimensions | 29.9 x 21.1 cm |
About the work
Part of my ongoing project called The infinite library, inspired by Jorge Luis Borges’s story, The Library of Babel. In many of his stories, Borges uses mathematical theories to reveal deep abstractions, composing chaos and repetition, while also giving up glimpses of circularity and infinity that are far beyond our field of vision.
These drawings function as a system of language, but one in which there is no key. Like pages from a book, each work is simultaneously the answer to a possible question, and undecipherable:
‘I have always thought a block of these works is an answer to something. Maybe this explains how gravity works in a parallel universe where there are three-legged mice… or everything is the same but you would be me and I would be you… there is an answer to a certain question in here which could be philosophical or could be physical. They are like short stories, but you cannot really read it because there is no legend to what each part means. That’s part of the game, explaining something without giving an answer. – Timo Nasseri
‘The failure to comprehend a written language, there is always something lost in translation, gaps that appear in the process of notation, yet mathematics underpins everything as both the most universal and incomprehensible descriptor’. – From Riffing on Mathematics by Rebecca Partridge, 2017
About the artist:
Born 1972 Berlin, Timo Nasseri lives and works in Berlin. Graduated from Lette-Verein, Berlin (1997).
Nasseri’s work uses the means of natural science to open up a perspective for the poetic and fantastic. He takes his inspiration from mathematics, geometry and patterns and underlines their interconnectedness in terms of repetition and aesthetics in his drawings and sculptures. His practice is one that tackles the subject of infinity and that aims to solve puzzles, whether they are historical mysteries or explorations via mathematical theorems to discover an overarching order in the chaos of existence.
Selected solo exhibitions include Constellations and Trajectories, with Franziska Furter, CCA, Andratx (2019); A Universal Alphabet, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut (2019); Uncertain Phases, Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen (2018); All the letters in all the stars, Maraya Art Center, Sharjah (2018); I saw a broken labyrinth, Ab/Anbar Gallery, Teheran (2017); Florenz-Bagdad, AK Wein, Vienna (2016); The more beneath my feet the skies I see, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg (2015); and Nine Firmaments, Schleicher/Lange, Berlin (2015). Selected group exhibitions include Konkrete Gegenwart, Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (2019); Negativer Raum, ZKM Karlsruhe (2019); NGV Triennial, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2017); Temporal Turn: Art and Speculation in Contemporary Asia, Spencer Museum of Art, Kansas (2016); Fire and Forget, KW-Kunstwerke, Berlin (2015); and Sculpture is Everything, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane (2012).
Awards and residencies include Casa Wabi, Mexico (2021); Stiftung Kunstfond (2020); Field Kitchen Academy (2019), CCA Andratx (2019, 2014); Abraaj Capital Art Prize (2011); Saar Ferngas Förderpreis JungeKunst (2006); Konrad-AdenauerStiftung (2004); and Arbeitsstipendium, Aenne Biermann Preis (2003).
