Eröffnung am 19. September 2025, 18–21 Uhr

Jahn und Jahn is delighted to present the third solo exhibition, after shows in Munich in 2020 and in Lisbon in 2023, by Dutch-Iranian artist Navid Nuur (b. 1976).

The artist prefers to call all his works ‘Interimodules’, a concept that refers to a temporary, flexible unit. The word combines ‘interim’—meaning something provisional, not fixed—with ‘module’, which points to a part that can connect to other parts, adapt, and shift. Rather than describing a clearly delineated artwork, the term indicates a modular moment that adjusts itself to context and meaning.

Each artwork can be seen as an in-between space where material, thought, and situation temporarily come together. This makes the artwork less of a closed object and more of a transitional constellation, one that remains open to change. The usefulness of the term lies in its ability to resist falling back on pre-existing terminology or rigid patterns of thought. By naming the artwork as an ‘Interimodule’, the attention stays with what the work itself demands accompanied by a fascination that enables surprising results.

The exhibition poster, designed specifically for this show, introduces the title MINDFUL MURMURATION and seeks to hold and capture the experience behind it—so that visitors can also take this feeling home. A murmuration refers to the natural phenomenon of birds flocking together in fluid, ever-changing formations. For Nuur, this image resonates with the state that has emerged over the past fifteen years through the making and experiencing of a series of artworks. Brought together in this exhibition, these works now form their own constellation—mirroring the mindful and dynamic movement of a murmuration. The smoke paintings, executed on site, are created through a process in which freshly primed canvases are exposed within a sealed space to clouds of coloured smoke. In this setting, the pigments are free to drift, settle, and leave their own traces. The result is an act of true abstraction, carried out autonomously by the material itself. Here, colour performs rather than illustrating; it expresses itself without the mediation of the artist’s hand. The role of the artist becomes that of a caretaker—facilitating the conditions, safeguarding the process, and allowing the work to emerge in its own rhythm and form.

In contrast, a selection of paintings (part of the series ‘The Eye-Codex of the Monochrome’) have been arranged all over the gallery space. When we close our eyes or are in complete darkness we ‘see nothing’ but still see ‘something’ as the artist says. This experience is called 'Eigengrau' and can be explained as the visual sensation in the brain without an external stimulus. After taking note of his own experiences, first noticed in 1980, Nuur translates the experience into his works using only functional paints (chroma key green colour, primers, retouche markers, road marking paint, etc.) in order to avoid a presentation of culturally coded colours.

The yellow woven fabric in the exhibition is the result of a collaboration of the artist with local weavers in Ghana, Africa, in 2012. Here, Nuur's visualisation of an internal language is combined with an outward code woven into the fabric as it traditionally expresses identity, status and belief through the chosen and changing compositions.

The series ‘Please free also this colour from Pantone prison’ (2014–2025) presents nine drawings that may appear innocent at first glance, yet through the texts inscribed on them another layer of meaning unfolds, shifting perception. Each frame also carries a pencil marked with a specific number. Together they question the Pantone Colour Matching System—a tool designed to standardize colour in design and production across a globalised world. What is often celebrated as a system of clarity and efficiency also reveals itself as a mechanism of control, narrowing the vast spectrum of colour to fixed codes. As creatives working beyond such codes, these works claim the right to liberate colour from standardisation. Even the simple act of using a pencil on paper demonstrates this freedom: the pressure of the hand makes each mark, each hue, inherently different. In this way, the drawings not only resist the confines of Pantone but also affirm a broader practice of creative autonomy, where colour and expression cannot be contained.

This feeling can also been seen in ‘Broken Square’. The tubes once formed a perfect square; now fractured, their shards are placed back inside. The shape has shifted, yet the volume of the square remains—a rectangle carrying its memory. For the artist, this work represents a missing link in the history of neon: while most neon art focuses on external shape and presence, here the emphasis is on the inner body of the material itself. Through the movement of argon gas, glass and broken glass create both an image and its ghost—the square transformed yet still alive within.

A few years ago, the artist was invited by the municipality of Munich to develop a proposal for a public artwork at a location of his own choosing. This invitation led to the development of what has since been called the ‘Munich Method’: a way of exploring the fabric of the functional city in search of ‘blind spots’—places without a clear, fixed, or flexible destination, spaces that remain undefined within the urban plan. From five such identified sites, two proposals emerged that resonate with the concept of murmuration. These works not only connect to the overarching theme of the exhibition but also root it in a more local context, bridging the experience of the show with the specificity of Munich’s urban environment.

Exzerpt aus einer E-mail von Navid Nuur an Jahn und Jahn:

Dear Jahn und Jahn,

You know, colour is a kind of dilemma. It breaks, it blends, it flows – and it never stands still. It’s exactly that restlessness that draws me in. The way colour, once transformed into a semi-tangible matter, brings with it a unique kind of energy. Up close, you witness a collective play of tones; from a distance, it becomes a solid field. In darkness, it expands – yet even then, it resists being fixed or contained. Sometimes, it seems that colour itself doesn’t know where it begins or ends.

Does colour have a structure? Can it feel like a surface? Can it un-speak a language? Should we stand up for colour? Is it a force we can summon, awaken, or breathe life into?

Colour lies almost like a first layer over everything we see – or think we see. As humans, we must learn to navigate this presence throughout our lives: to give it space, to process it, sometimes to ignore it – both physically and mentally. And yet, this constant dance brings me a strange kind of peace. Because colour doesn’t define culture. Every colour is, at its core, neutral. It belongs to something larger – just as we do, in our own way.

There is meaning in the active, collective posture of colour – a meaning that reaches beyond our cultural interpretations. Perhaps even one that is more sustainable. When a body of colour is allowed to speak for itself, without being used as a mouthpiece for another agenda, true presence and dialogue can emerge.

This is a dialogue I’ve been engaged in for years – and it’s time to bring together a series of works that embody it. Where colour is allowed to slow down. In works that weave themselves into the urban, the collective, or the intimate inner gaze of the human being. Works that call on diverse materials – and even on the city of Munich itself – to bring colour to life in ways the viewer can listen to, with both body and mind.

GRTSZ Navid

Navid Nuur, geb. 1976 in Teheran, lebt und arbeitet in Den Haag. Ausbildung: 1999–2001 Homeschool vor de Gunsten (HKU), Utrecht; 2002–2003 Piet Zwar Institute, Rotterdam; 2002–2004 MA Plymouth University. Ausgewählte Auszeichnungen: 2010 Volkskrant Prize Charlotte Kohlerprijs, 2011 Royal Award for Painting in Amsterdam, 2013 Discovery Prize Art Basel Hong Kong (zusammen mit Adrian Ghenie). Seine Werke befinden sich in bedeutenden Sammlungen, u.a. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris; Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin; Kunsthalle Zürich; etc.   Ausgewählte Einzelausstellungen: 2025 soda, Kyoto, Japan; 2024 Oude Kerk, Amsterdam, Niederlande; 2023 soda, Kyoto, Japan; 2023 Jahn und Jahn, Lissabon, Portugal; 2023 Parliament Gallery, Paris, Frankreich; 2022 Galerie Max Hezler, Berlin; 2021 Galeria Plan B, Berlin; 2021 Galerie Max Hetzler, London, UK; 2020 Kunstmuseum Den Haag, Niederlande; 2020 Marta Herford Museum für Kunst, Architektur und Design, Herford; 2020 Jahn und Jahn, München; 2019 NDSM-WERF, Amsterdam, Niederlande; 2019 Galerie Max Hetzler, Paris; 2019 Gallery Sofie Van de Velde, Antwerpen, Belgien; 2018 Plan B, Berlin; 2017 Be-Part, Platform voor Actuele Kunst, Waregum, Belgien; 2017 Martin van Zomeren Gallery, Amsterdam, Niederlande; 2017 Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin; 2016 Galerie Martin van Zomeren, Amsterdam, Niederlande; etc.