Artworks1991Window

An invitation card from the artists degree show, showing the Union Jack taken from the cover of the ‘Sun’ newspaper, with the Artists face printed over the top wearing a beret.

This postcard accompanied Turk’s degree exhibition (where he exhibited ‘Cave’). The image is based on the front page of the British tabloid The Sun, which, on the eve of the first Gulf War in 1991, superimposed the head of a British soldier onto the Union Jack. Its headline ran: ‘Support our boys and put this flag in your window’. Turk replaced the squaddie’s head with his own, so that the beret referred to artists rather than soldiers. At the time the British media were notoriously hostile to ‘modern’ art, and Turk couldn’t resist suggesting that the press might promote artists as positive national symbols as much as they support the military.