Exhibitions2010Something Like This

Something Like This at Park Ryu Sook Gallery was Turk’s first solo exhibition in Korea, which featured about 20 of Turk’s most representative works including sculptures, paintings, silkscreen works and a video.

One of Turk’s earliest best-known sculptures, Pop (1993), was on display: a life-size waxwork self- portrait in which Turk adopts the identity of Sid Vicious singing ‘My Way’ in the pose of Elvis Presley, as depicted by Andy Warhol. In Pile (2004), a painted bronze sculpture of a pile of garbage bags, Turk explored the way in which a work of art is conferred with iconic status and value.

Turk has always been interested in the way fame and celebrity affect the understanding of art and the position of artists. Included in the exhibition were museum-scale canvases depicting the artist in the personae of Che Guevara, Evlis Presley and Joseph Beuys, all in the style of Andy Warhol. Turk borrows from the history of art and at the same time references contemporary popular culture, exploring the power of artists while questioning the uniqueness and inherent value structure of the creative process.