Gavin Turk
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Gavin Turk (born 1967) is a British artist from Guildford in Surrey, and is considered to be one of the
Young British Artists The Young British Artists, or YBAs—also referred to as Brit artists and Britart—is a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London in 1988. Many of the YBA artists graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Goldsm ...
.
Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is ...
. (2009)
'Pop Life: Art in a Material World'
Retrieved 14 August 2012.
Turk's oeuvre deals with issues of authenticity and identity, engaged with
modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...
and
avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
debates surrounding the 'myth' of the artist and the 'authorship' of a work of art.


Early work

Turk studied at
Chelsea School of Art Chelsea College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London based in London, United Kingdom, and is a leading British art and design institution with an international reputation. It offers further and higher educat ...
from 1986 to 1989, and at the
Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...
from 1989 to 1991. In 1991, tutors at the
Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...
refused to present Gavin Turk with his postgraduate degree, a decision based on his graduation exhibition. Titled ''Cave'', it consisted of a whitewashed studio space, containing a blue heritage plaque (of the kind normally found on historic buildings) commemorating his own presence as a sculptor, stating "Gavin Turk worked here, 1989–1991". This bestowed some instant notoriety on Turk, whose work was collected by numerous collectors including
Charles Saatchi Charles Saatchi (; ar, تشارلز ساعتجي; born 9 June 1943) is an Iraqi-British businessman and the co-founder, with his brother Maurice, of advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. The brothers led the business – the world's largest a ...
, who later exhibited Turk's work in the exhibition
Sensation Sensation (psychology) refers to the processing of the senses by the sensory system. Sensation or sensations may also refer to: In arts and entertainment In literature *Sensation (fiction), a fiction writing mode *Sensation novel, a British ...
, which toured London (
Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpo ...
), Berlin (
Hamburger Bahnhof Hamburger Bahnhof is the former terminus of the Berlin–Hamburg Railway in Berlin, Germany, on Invalidenstrasse in the Moabit district opposite the Charité hospital. Today it serves as a contemporary art museum, the , part of the Berlin Nati ...
) and New York (
Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...
). Turk attended the private view of the Sensation exhibition at the
Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...
, dressed as a down-and-out. The blue plaque from the ''Cave'' instillation was later exhibited in a museum style case as ''Relic (Cave)'', he also had a version of it made by one of the companies who make blue plaques for
English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...
and this is in the
Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...
collection. He has subsequently produced an extensive body of work, which purports to question the value and integrity of a hermetic artistic identity.


Practice

Turk's wide ranging practice often incorporates iconic images of figures taken from popular culture and art historical sources. A series of detailed life-sized waxworks, incorporating the artist’s own appearance, features the artist assuming various poses as different characters, including
Sid Vicious John Simon Ritchie (10 May 1957 – 2 February 1979), better known by his stage name Sid Vicious, was an English musician, best known as the bassist for the punk rock band Sex Pistols. Despite dying in 1979 at age 21, he remains an icon of the ...
,
Jean-Paul Marat Jean-Paul Marat (; born Mara; 24 May 1743 – 13 July 1793) was a French political theorist, physician, and scientist. A journalist and politician during the French Revolution, he was a vigorous defender of the ''sans-culottes'', a radical ...
, and the
Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
revolutionary
Che Guevara Ernesto Che Guevara (; 14 June 1928The date of birth recorded on /upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Ernesto_Guevara_Acta_de_Nacimiento.jpg his birth certificatewas 14 June 1928, although one tertiary source, (Julia Constenla, quoted ...
. Turk's most famous work in this series, ''Pop'' (1993), is a waxwork of Turk as Sid Vicious. The work appropriates the stance of
Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...
's screen print of
Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...
. In the work, the right hand is pointing a gun, a motif which recurs in other works in the series, such as ''Bum'' (1998). Turk has appropriated recognisable elements from artists such as
Jacques-Louis David Jacques-Louis David (; 30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was a French painter in the Neoclassicism, Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s, his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in ...
,
Yves Klein Yves Klein (; 28 April 1928 – 6 June 1962) was a French artist and an important figure in post-war European art. He was a leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by art critic Pierre Restany. Klein w ...
,
Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...
,
Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...
,
René Magritte René François Ghislain Magritte (; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature and bounda ...
,
Alighiero Boetti Alighiero Fabrizio Boetti known as Alighiero e Boetti (16 December 1940 – 24 February 1994) was an Italian conceptual artist, considered to be a member of the art movement Arte Povera. Background Boetti is most famous for a series of embroi ...
,
Robert Morris (artist) Robert Morris (February 9, 1931 – November 28, 2018) was an American sculptor, conceptual artist and writer. He was regarded as having been one of the most prominent theorists of Minimalism along with Donald Judd, but also made important ...
, and
Jasper Johns Jasper Johns (born May 15, 1930) is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker whose work is associated with abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada, and pop art. He is well known for his depictions of the American flag and other US-related top ...
.


Elvis Presley

From 2005 Turk began producing a small number of silkscreen works on canvas, depicting himself as
Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...
, in a pose taken from the paintings by Andy Warhol of the same subject from the 1960s, such as Warhol's Triple Elvis. Turk applied diamond dust to some of the Elvis works made from diamanté applied to silkscreened canvas in vibrant pop colours, which sparkles in direct light. Warhol was one of the first artists to use diamond dust in his artworks. Examples of Turk's Elvis series are ''Diamond Yellow Elvis'', 2005 and ''Diamond Pink Elvis'', 2005.


Che Guevara

A set of what appeared to be classic posters of
Che Guevara Ernesto Che Guevara (; 14 June 1928The date of birth recorded on /upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Ernesto_Guevara_Acta_de_Nacimiento.jpg his birth certificatewas 14 June 1928, although one tertiary source, (Julia Constenla, quoted ...
in a beret, again revealed themselves on further scrutiny to be photos of Turk himself. Turk alleged that the management of London's (now defunct)
Millennium Dome The Millennium Dome was the original name of the large dome-shaped building on the Greenwich Peninsula in South East (London sub region), South East London, England, which housed a major exhibition celebrating the beginning of the third millenn ...
refused to display his Che Gavara (sic) sculpture, for fear of offending arms-manufacturing Dome sponsor BAe/Marconi (however a correspondent in ''
Art Monthly ''Art Monthly'' is a magazine of contemporary art founded in 1976 by Jack Wendler and Peter Townsend. It is based in London and has an international scope, although its main focus is on British art. The magazine is published ten times a year (wit ...
'' magazine pointed out that work by the highly political left-wing cartoonist
Ralph Steadman Ralph Idris Steadman (born 15 May 1936) is a British illustrator best known for his collaboration and friendship with the American writer Hunter S. Thompson. Steadman is renowned for his political and social caricatures, cartoons and picture b ...
was being exhibited in the Dome at the same time).


Sculpture and public works

A series of three-dimensional
Trompe-l'œil ''Trompe-l'œil'' ( , ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. ''Trompe l'oeil'', which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into ...
works includes objects cast into bronze, painted to give the appearance of the original object. Possibly his most revered works, these include bronze sculptures of plastic rubbish bags, see "Bag" (2000). Other sculptures include "Nomad" (2002), a bronze cast of a sleeping bag, and ''Box'' (2002), which resembles a cardboard box. Turk is perhaps the leading exponent of the painted bronze, and has cast objects from spent matches to worn paving slabs to discarded vehicle exhaust pipes. In December 2009, Turk took part in the "Bricks" exhibition at Area 10 in Peckham in Southeast London. However, the day before the exhibition was to start, organizers noticed that his piece entitled "Revolting Brick" had been stolen and replaced with a fake brick. The fake brick held the words "Thank You Have a Nice Day, Next" and was part of a set of 500 that was given away at the exhibition. "Revolting Brick" was number eight in a series of ten that Turk had created and signed. The artist stated that he "was upset but flattered" at what had happened and that the theft "raises questions about value and worth". In May 2011, Turk's first large-scale, 12-metre public sculpture was unveiled between the
One New Change One New Change is a major office and retail development in the City of London. It comprises of floor space, including of retail space and of office space and is the only large shopping centre in the City of London, the historic nucleus and mo ...
City mall, designed by
Pritzker Prize The Pritzker Architecture Prize is an international architecture award presented annually "to honor a living architect or architects whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produ ...
-winning architect
Jean Nouvel Jean Nouvel (; born 12 August 1945) is a French architect. Nouvel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a founding member of ''Mars 1976'' and ''Syndicat de l'Architecture'', France’s first labor union for architects. He has ob ...
, and
St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in London and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Grad ...
. In 2017 Turk placed an unofficial
Blue Plaque A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. The term i ...
commemorating
Damien Hirst Damien Steven Hirst (; né Brennan; born 7 June 1965) is an English artist, entrepreneur, and art collector. He is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingd ...
at Newport Street Gallery in London. In September 2021, Gavin Turk made a piece called “Piscio D’Artista” whereby he canned his own urine and sold it for its weight in silver through Kickstarter, as an homage to
Piero Manzoni Piero Manzoni di Chiosca e Poggiolo, better known as Piero Manzoni (July 13, 1933 – February 6, 1963) was an Italian artist best known for his ironic approach to avant-garde art. Often compared to the work of Yves Klein, his own work anticip ...
’s 1961 art piece “Merda D’Artista,” which Manzoni famously canned his own excrement and sold it for its weight in gold.


Exhibitions

Gavin Turk has exhibited widely internationally. His solo exhibitions include 'L'Amour Fou', David Nolan Gallery, New York City (2013), 'Türk', Galerist, Istanbul, Turkey (2012), 'Gavin & Turk', Ben Brown Gallery, London (2013), 'Jack Shit!', Aeroplastics, Brussels, Belgium (2011), 'Before The World Was Round', Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna, Austria (2011) and 'En Face', Galerie Almine Rech, Paris, France (2010), 'The Mirror Stage', Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa (2009), 'Burnt Out', Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel, Switzerland (2008), 'Piss Off', Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna, Austria (2008) and 'Negotiation of Purpose', GEM Museum for Contemporary Art, The Hague, Netherlands (2007). Additionally, Turk has had solo exhibitions at Sean Kelly Gallery, New York (2005), the New Art Centre Sculpture Park and Gallery, Salisbury, England (2003), the New Art Gallery in Walsall, England (2002), and "The Stuff Show" at South London Gallery (1998). Recent group exhibitions include 'Street', New Art gallery Walsall (2012), 'Made in Britain: Contemporary Art from the British Council Collection', Sichuan (2012), 'Deja-vu? The Art of Copying from Dürer to You Tube', Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Germany (2012), 'Twenty', Aurel Scheibler, Berlin, Germany (2012), 'The Art of Chess', Bendigo Gallery; University of Queensland Art Museum, Australia (2012), 'Identity Theft', Mimmo scognamiglio Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy (2010), 'Pop Life: Art in a Material World', Tate Modern, London (2009), 'The Third Dimension, Whitechapel Art Gallery', London (2009), 'DLA Piper Series: This is Sculpture', Tate Liverpool, Liverpool (2009), Turk has also been involved in "teach-in" events such as "The Che Gavara (sic) Story" (2001).


Politics

In August 2014, Turk was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in September's referendum on that issue. In November 2018, Turk was one of 82 people arrested during a coordinated occupation of five bridges in Central London. The demonstration which was co-ordinated by
Extinction Rebellion Extinction Rebellion (abbreviated as XR) is a global environmental movement, with the stated aim of using nonviolent civil disobedience to compel government action to avoid tipping points in the climate system, biodiversity loss, and the risk o ...
, was to raise the awareness of
climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
. Turk said, “It seems like everyone is in an odd sense of denial about climate change.”


The House of Fairy Tales

In 2007 Turk established, with his partner Deborah Curtis, The House of Fairy Tales, a children's arts charity based in London, that brings together hundreds of artists, performers, actors, writers and philosophers to deliver theatrical events, guides and exhibitions. The project continues to further community education projects based around, supported by, and advocating art. The House of Fairy Tales tour the country in a mobile gallery horse box which made its festival debut at the 2008 Crunch Festival in Hay-on-Wye. In 2009, they appeared at the Glastonbury Festival. In the summer of 2009, The House of Fairy Tales also staged ''The Long Weekend'', a pop-up festival for all ages, hosted by
Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is ...
.


Awards

In 2001, Turk was awarded the Jack Goldhill Sculpture Prize for his work 'Bag' (2000) by the Royal Academy of Arts, London, who in 2007 also awarded him the Charles Wollaston award for his work 'Dumb Candle' (2007), a carving of a candle made from the top of an old broom handle.


Professorship

Gavin Turk was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Arts, University of East London in 2010. Turk held the post of Professor of Art and Design 2012 - 2020 at
Bath Spa University Bath Spa University is a public university in Bath, England, with its main campus at Newton Park, about west of the centre of the city. The university has other campuses in the city of Bath, and one at Corsham Court in Wiltshire. The instit ...
.


Notes and references


External links


The Official Site for Gavin Turk

The Official Site for The House of Fairy Tales



Gavin Turk
at Sculpture.org.uk




Gavin Turk talks to www.theartnewspaper.tv about Duck Rabbit at Frieze 2009

Gavin Turk on BBC4, discussing the impact of Charles Saatchi on the modern art world

Gavin Turk discussing The House of Fairy Tales with The Guardian newspaper

Gavin Turk Transit Disaster at Paul Stolper Gallery, London 2012
{{DEFAULTSORT:Turk, Gavin 1967 births Academics of Bath Spa University Alumni of Chelsea College of Arts Alumni of the Royal College of Art 20th-century British sculptors British male sculptors 21st-century sculptors Living people People educated at City of London Freemen's School English contemporary artists 20th-century British male artists