Exhibitions2014Seven Billion Two Hundred and One Million Nine Hundred and Sixty-Four Thousand and Two Hundred and Thirty-Eight
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.