Nora Turato
Archive
2024
THIS IS A TEST OF SEVERANCE. can you let go?
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Archive
2024
About the Work
Known for her text-based works and a practice that spans performance, video, wall-mounted works, and artist books, Turato frequently challenges the boundaries of language. Assembling texts sourced from everyday life — media headlines, advertisements, social media captions — Turato’s signature bold typography and spoken word performances hold a mirror up to our information-saturated society. For Turato’s ART on THE MART commission, THIS IS A TEST OF SEVERANCE. can you let go?, she has drawn inspiration from mantras, affirmations, and other lexicons from the self-betterment industries, delving into our obsessions with wellness culture and its associated anxieties and insecurities.
On Saturday, April 13, during EXPO Chicago, Turato delivers a new performance, pool 6, at The Art Institute of Chicago’s Fullerton Hall. Originally commissioned by Performa, New York for the 2023 Biennial, pool 6 sees Turato for the first time incorporating multiple identities within one of her monologues, concerned with the notions of self-optimization and the culture of well-being. Turato’s ART on THE MART debut also coincides with a solo exhibition at Sprüth Magers (February 28—April 27), which will premiere a new video work alongside her latest enamel panels across both floors of the Los Angeles gallery.
"'THIS IS A TEST OF SEVERANCE. can you let go?' continues to explore the collective desire for self-optimization and control we exercise over ourselves in a constant pursuit of improvement. I am honored that my piece will be the inaugural work of the season and am excited to unveil such a major public project in Chicago."