Artworks1999The Last Bum

A life size waxwork of the artist as a tramp.

In 1997, London’s Royal Academy of Arts hosted ‘Sensation’, an exhibition of work by young British artists from the collection of Charles Saatchi. This highly publicised exhibition opened with a celebrity filled party and Turk, who was exhibiting, arrived dressed as a homeless person wearing ‘worn-in’ clothes and a pair of specially fabricated ‘shoes’. Turk said ‘I thought everyone else would be dressed up and I didn’t have any party clothes, so I ended up making some’. This outfit became a part of the sculpture ‘Bum’ – a kind of degenerate version of ‘Pop’. Turk later made two similar waxworks, ‘Another Bum’ and ‘The Last Bum’.