Gavin Turk: Seven Billion Two Hundred and One Million Nine Hundred and Sixty-Four Thousand and Two Hundred and Thirty-Eight

Text on black background: Seven Billion Two Hundred and One Million Nine Hundred and Sixty-Four Thousand and Two Hundred and Thirty-Eight — Courtesy of Live Stock Market Ltd. & Gavin Turk

Yellow neon banana, purple neon door, blue neon numbers, yellow and red neon lighted match stick, all on black backdrop — Courtesy of Live Stock Market Ltd. & Gavin Turk

large yellow neon outline of an egg, red neon door, red neon start, all against black backdrop — Courtesy of Live Stock Market Ltd. & Gavin Turk

Red neon lobster, white and yellow neon candle, large yellow neon egg, red neon door, all on black backdrop — Courtesy of Live Stock Market Ltd. & Gavin Turk

Red neon Maltese cross, yellow neon banana, purple neon door, all against a black backdrop — Courtesy of Live Stock Market Ltd. & Gavin Turk

Yellow neon egg, red neon door, against a black backdrop — Courtesy of Live Stock Market Ltd. & Gavin Turk

Seven Billion Two Hundred and One Million Nine Hundred and Sixty-Four Thousand and Two Hundred and Thirty-Eight

25 Jan - 21 Apr 14

The Bowes Museum

The title of the exhibition (which we will spare you from reading again) is the exact number of people alive on Planet Earth at the precise moment the show opened on January 24, 2014. His large-scale neon light work broadcast the number on The Bowes’s iconic chateau-style façade.

The Bowes Museum was a fitting setting for Turk’s collection of neon works: its permanent display of decorative and fine arts from the Bronze Age to the 20th century records not only cultural history, but its understanding through technological advancement.

The exhibition was the first time Turk’s entire collection of neon works had been brought together. Signature pieces made between 1995 and 2013 lit up the Bowes Museum’s main gallery with their effervescent glow.

Visually reduced to minimal typographies, the luminous beacons represent communication in its barest form: an egg, a banana, a lobster – the spirit-presence of Magritte, Warhol, Duchamp, art’s magical essence distilled as channelled gas, hyper-efficiently packaged as Turk’s own-brand logos.

Two pieces in the exhibition held special significance: a red star, made in conjunction with Turk’s Che Gavara series, is a replica of the signage on the façade of Turk’s Hackney Wick London studio; and an eight-pointed Maltese cross, a symbol dating back to the First Crusade and one that similarly intrigued Yves Klein.