Rock Gunslinger Pink and Red

Diamond dust and acrylic paint on canvas

Acrylic paint and diamond dust on canvas

Warhol

Celebrity

Elvis

Masks

Self-Portrait

Faces

Silkscreen

Rock Gunslinger Yellow and Green

Punk Gunslinger Blue and Green

Punk Gunslinger Yellow and Orange

Fright Wig on Paper

Acrylic paint peel on paper

Identity

Installation info: Hang on wall avoiding direct sunlight, heat and moisturePop image in life size silkscreen in black on gold

Gold Pop

Silkscreen ink and metallic paint on canvas

Installation info: Hang on wall avoiding direct sunlight, heat and moisturePop image in life size silkscreen in black on gold

Installation info: Hang on wall avoiding direct sunlight, heat and moisture Pop image in life size silkscreen in black on gold

Gold Stained Glass Fright Wig

Screen Vin ink on stained glass in aluminium frame

Your Authorised Reflection

Glass, mirror ink & pen in aluminium frame

Signatures

Mirrors

A print of the Artist as Joseph Beuys in brown with diamond dust on a black background. Printed in the style of an Andy Warhol silkscreen.

In Memory of Joseph Beuys

Silkscreen on canvas with diamond dust 

Beuys

Icons

Appropriation

A print of the Artist as Joseph Beuys in brown with diamond dust on a black background. Printed in the style of an Andy Warhol silkscreen.

An installation consisting of a postcard rack filled with postcards of the image used for the piece 'window'.

Window rack

Postcards & Metal Display Rack

Flags

Installation

An installation consisting of a postcard rack filled with postcards of the image used for the piece 'window'.

A vacform plastic reproduction of the artist's original blue plaque installation of the same title.

Cave

Silkscreen on plastic

Death

Artist

Blighty 

Sculpture

A vacform plastic reproduction of the artist's original blue plaque installation of the same title.

Cave (edition)

A photographic mock-up of the cover of ‘Hello!’ magazine showing the Artist and his family, presented in a glass top vitrine.

Hello

Colour copy, acrylic, steel and cloth

Consume

Photographic Work

Identity Crisis

Screen printed poster in box

Photographic mock-up of the cover of Hello! magazine showing the artist and his family. Presented on a light box in the style of an advertisement.In this amusingly prescient artwork, Turk mocked-up a fake cover of HELLO! Magazine and displayed it on an advertising light box. The work foresaw how the complexities of an artist’s practice can be lost when they are used to feed a mainstream appetite for gossip, lifestyle and celebrity. Turk produced this piece before the mass media embraced the ‘Brit Art’ phenomenon and began to focus on the personalities of the most successful artists.In Identity Crisis (1994) a mock-up of Hello! magazine is presented on a lightbox. This amusingly prophetic artwork, parodying an advertising campaign, foresaw how the complexities of an artist’s practice can be lost when they are used to feed a mainstream appetite for biographical gossip and lifestyle. This work was displayed at the Saatchi Gallery as part of the prescient Young British Artists series.

Pop is a waxwork figure of the artist as Sid Vicious in the pose of Andy Warhol's Elvis Presley, which imagined the be-quiffed star as a gunslinging cowboy - the original king of Pop as celebrated by the original "king" of Pop Art. A homage to both, Pop finds Turk adopting the same rebel snarl with the curled upper lip, not as the King of Pop but the dark Prince of punk. While Elvis was a sanitised icon of the music industry given a rebellious makeover by Warhol, Sid was a natural outsider who found himself somewhat accidentally at the heart of pop culture. Both came to untimely and sticky ends, sucked up and spat out by the same system, with a heavy dose of self-destruction thrown in for good measure. Certainly, there was nothing glossy or shiny or bright about the respective ends of these two nemeses. But if Pop is a comment on the nature of celebrity and the inbuilt self-destruction of the star system, which likes its martyrs young and damaged - with not a small nod at the martyrdom expected of artists should they ever hope to see their name up in lights, also - it is also a wry take on the commodification of culture, in which rebels and heroes, artists, art works and icons are reduced to products whose value is determined by the arbitrary randomness of the market. Removed from the mean streets of punk's DIY roots, this Sid Vicious is already a museum object, a historical curiosity in a glass vitrine to be gazed upon at a safe distance. No longer a threat, this Sid Vicious may be pointing his gun, but the only things his piece is firing, are blanks. And what of The Artist? Once regarded as a outsider, has the market rendered Him an impotent and antiquated museum curiosity too? Has the gunslinger been relegated to the realm of cliche, no longer a threat but taken hostage by the very system he hoped to challenge? Is he now responsible for writing his own ransom note? Or is there still a possibility that he may yet lay claim to the mantra made famous twice, first by Frank Sinatra and then by Sid that, right to the end, glass vitrine and all,

end, he did it "My Way"?

Waxwork in brass, wood and glass vitrine

Pop is a waxwork figure of the artist as Sid Vicious in the pose of Andy Warhol's Elvis Presley, which imagined the be-quiffed star as a gunslinging cowboy - the original king of Pop as celebrated by the original "king" of Pop Art. A homage to both, Pop finds Turk adopting the same rebel snarl with the curled upper lip, not as the King of Pop but the dark Prince of punk. While Elvis was a sanitised icon of the music industry given a rebellious makeover by Warhol, Sid was a natural outsider who found himself somewhat accidentally at the heart of pop culture. Both came to untimely and sticky ends, sucked up and spat out by the same system, with a heavy dose of self-destruction thrown in for good measure. Certainly, there was nothing glossy or shiny or bright about the respective ends of these two nemeses. But if Pop is a comment on the nature of celebrity and the inbuilt self-destruction of the star system, which likes its martyrs young and damaged - with not a small nod at the martyrdom expected of artists should they ever hope to see their name up in lights, also - it is also a wry take on the commodification of culture, in which rebels and heroes, artists, art works and icons are reduced to products whose value is determined by the arbitrary randomness of the market. Removed from the mean streets of punk's DIY roots, this Sid Vicious is already a museum object, a historical curiosity in a glass vitrine to be gazed upon at a safe distance. No longer a threat, this Sid Vicious may be pointing his gun, but the only things his piece is firing, are blanks. And what of The Artist? Once regarded as a outsider, has the market rendered Him an impotent and antiquated museum curiosity too? Has the gunslinger been relegated to the realm of cliche, no longer a threat but taken hostage by the very system he hoped to challenge? Is he now responsible for writing his own ransom note? Or is there still a possibility that he may yet lay claim to the mantra made famous twice, first by Frank Sinatra and then by Sid that, right to the end, glass vitrine and all, end, he did it "My Way"?

Punk

Fool

Outsider

Pop is a waxwork figure of the artist as Sid Vicious in the pose of Andy Warhol's Elvis Presley, which imagined the be-quiffed star as a gunslinging cowboy - the original king of Pop as celebrated by the original "king" of Pop Art. A homage to both, Pop finds Turk adopting the same rebel snarl with the curled upper lip, not as the King of Pop but the dark Prince of punk. While Elvis was a sanitised icon of the music industry given a rebellious makeover by Warhol, Sid was a natural outsider who found himself somewhat accidentally at the heart of pop culture.

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.

Window

Printed image on card

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.

Work on paper

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.

A glass top vitrine containing a beret and the front page of the ‘Sun’ newspaper portraying the artist as a soldier wearing the beret printed over the Union Jack flag.

Study for Window

Beret, newspaper & colour photocopy in glass top vitrine

Beret, newspaper & colour photocopy in vitrine

A glass top vitrine containing a beret and the front page of the ‘Sun’ newspaper portraying the artist as a soldier wearing the beret printed over the Union Jack flag.

The original blue plaque from 'Cave' installation encased in a Beuysian vitrine made with boards from the room walls when first shown.

In the summer of 1991 for his graduation show from the Royal College of Art, the artist exhibited a blue Heritage plaque in an otherwise empty studio which commemorated his own presence as a sculptor.

The title Cave refers to an allegorical picture of Plato, which describes a model of perception. A group of prisoners have been chained in a cave since childhood with no experience of reality other than the flickering shadows cast by the people and things moving along a path in front of a fire situated behind them. In the plaque, the artist was represented by a retrospective view of his life.

Relic (Cave)

original plaque from Cave installation in vitrine

The original blue plaque from 'Cave' installation encased in a Beuysian vitrine made with boards from the room walls when first shown. In the summer of 1991 for his graduation show from the Royal College of Art, the artist exhibited a blue Heritage plaque in an otherwise empty studio which commemorated his own presence as a sculptor. The title Cave refers to an allegorical picture of Plato, which describes a model of perception. A group of prisoners have been chained in a cave since childhood with no experience of reality other than the flickering shadows cast by the people and things moving along a path in front of a fire situated behind them. In the plaque, the artist was represented by a retrospective view of his life.

Authorship

Fate

Illusion

The original blue plaque from 'Cave' installation encased in a Beuysian vitrine made with boards from the room walls when first shown. In the summer of 1991 for his graduation show from the Royal College of Art, the artist exhibited a blue Heritage plaque in an otherwise empty studio which commemorated his own presence as a sculptor.

An ‘historical blue plaque’ to commemorate work done by the artist during his time at the Royal College of Art. In a sky-lit wood-panelled room inside the Royal College of Art mounted on an otherwise empty wall in an otherwise empty room, a blue ceramic English heritage plaque reads “Gavin Turk, Sculptor, worked here 1989 – 1991”. A commemoration of a life, it marks the presence of the artist with the most powerful and evocative of the tools that might be at his disposal - his absence. The curtain has fallen. The titles are rolling. Gavin Turk has left the stage. Death as performance. While the absence of the artist, we make the art. The artist is no more and all that is left for the audience in this empty white space is to reverently imagine the work which once filled this space, while apprehending that the emptiness is the work. And so material object of the plaque frames the space and the art work frames the artist, the one somehow preceding the other in an elliptical sleight of hand, as the end frames the beginning. All that is left behind of the artist is a memorial to an implied body of work, and by extension, an implied life and worth, while the title, after Plato’s famous allegory, tells of a hidden reality we can neither see nor know. In an unexpected twist to the tale, Cave has additionally become infamous as the piece of work that "won" Turk a fail for his Masters which he had been studying for at the Royal College of Art. Ironically, it has gone on to become regarded as one of Turk's most iconic pieces.

Ceramic plaque in room

An ‘historical blue plaque’ to commemorate work done by the artist during his time at the Royal College of Art. In a sky-lit wood-panelled room inside the Royal College of Art mounted on an otherwise empty wall  in an otherwise empty room, a blue ceramic English heritage plaque reads “Gavin Turk, Sculptor, worked here 1989 – 1991”. A commemoration of a life, it marks the presence of the artist with the most powerful and evocative of the tools that might be at his disposal - his absence. The curtain has fallen. The titles are rolling. Gavin Turk has left the stage. Death as performance. While the absence of the artist, we make the art. The artist is no more and all that is left for the audience in this empty white space is to reverently imagine the work which once filled this space, while apprehending that the emptiness is the work. And so material object of the plaque frames the space and the art work frames the artist, the one somehow preceding the other in an elliptical sleight of hand, as the end frames the beginning. All that is left behind of the artist is a memorial to an implied body of work, and by extension, an implied life and worth, while the title, after Plato’s famous allegory, tells of a hidden reality we can neither see nor know. In an unexpected twist to the tale, Cave has additionally become infamous as the piece of work that "won" Turk a fail for his Masters which he had been studying for at the Royal College of Art. Ironically, it has gone on to become regarded as one of Turk's most iconic pieces.

An ‘historical blue plaque’ to commemorate work done by the artist during his time at the Royal College of Art. In a sky-lit wood-panelled room inside the Royal College of Art mounted on an otherwise empty wall in an otherwise empty room, a blue ceramic English heritage plaque reads “Gavin Turk, Sculptor, worked here 1989 – 1991”. A commemoration of a life, it marks the presence of the artist with the most powerful and evocative of the tools that might be at his disposal - his absence. The curtain has fallen. The titles are rolling. Gavin Turk has left the stage. Death as performance.

A photographic mock-up of the cover of &lsquo;Hello!&rsquo; magazine showing the Artist and his family, presented in a glass top vitrine.

A ceramic replica of the original ‘historical blue plaque’ which was shown by the Artist in his degree show at the Royal College of Art.

Cavey

Ceramic plaque

A ceramic replica of the original ‘historical blue plaque’ which was shown by the Artist in his degree show at the Royal College of Art.