Ghost Pop

Silkscreen ink and metallic paint on canvas

Sid Vicious

Outsider

Warhol

Masks

Self-Portrait

Faces

Silkscreen

A triple print of the piece Pop which showsthe 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 &quot;king&quot; 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 a reproducible multiple 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 &quot;My Way&quot;?

Gold Triple Pop

Acrylic silkscreen on paper

Icons

Punk

Elvis

A triple print of the piece Pop which shows

A poster of Elvis painted over by the Artist to resemble Sid Vicious.

Viva La Rock (Sid Elvis)

Acrylic ink on printed paper

Dandy

Work on paper

A poster of Elvis painted over by the Artist to resemble Sid Vicious.

Embroidery

Etching

Film

Found Object

Glass

Installation

Mixed Media

Object Trouvé

Painted Bronze

Painting

Photographic Work

Public Sculpture

Ready Made

Sculpture

Aeroplastics Contemporary, Brussels

Ben Brown Fine Arts, London

David Nolan Gallery, New York

Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna

Maruani Mercier, Brussels & Knokke

Paul Stolper, London

Reflex, Amsterdam

Gavin Turk

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