Exhibitions2013Vanacular

Coinciding with the 55^th Cenice Biennale, the Gervasuti Foundation presented Turk’s solo project Vanacular, comprising a section from his Transit Disaster series. A pun combining ‘van’ and ‘vernacular’, the title is a metaphorical nod to the social connotations that the iconic white Ford van  of the ‘90s represents in Britain.

Vanacular revives the classic pop-art technique of silk-screen-on-canvas while referencing the works of its most celebrated exponents Andy Warhol and Robert Raushenberg with his 18 metre long Currents (1970).

Inspired by Warhol’s famous Death And Disaster series (1962-3), Turk’s Vanacular comprises a continuous 27 metre long canvas with a selection of Internet sourced images of crashed and burnt-out Ford Transit vans.

Transit Disaster series is not merely a pastiche of Warhol’s famous car crash paintings since Turk replaces the American car with an image of a white transit van, a symbol of a disappearing era of working class Britain.

Vanacular also relates, albeit indirectly, to the term ‘Fordism’, the notion of a modern economic and social system based on assembly line system of mass production for a mass market. Turk’s Vanacular represents a visual manifestation of urban unrest, which through continuous clashes and disasters is heading towards a materialistic mutationtion.