Exhibitions2015Yard

In July of 2015, Turk presented ‘Yard’, a solo exhibition of his works at The CCA Andratx in Mallorca.  

Known for his elaborate re-enactments of art history’s legends - adopting their works’ aesthetics, creative processes and even public personas – Turk applies this artistic ‘regeneration’ to his own practice for the title piece, Yard: a short film shot in the vacant lot adjacent to Turk’s studio, one of the few industrial plots not yet re-developed in East London’s property boom. Turk positions the viewer as artist-avatar on a stealth-like and predatory mission to repurpose territory in modernism’s wasteland. As the camera surveils capitalism’s ruins, the defunct and discarded are scrutinized as cultural relics and potential creative solutions.

Within a darkened gallery lit only by sodium street lights – suggesting both nocturnal uncertainty and museological conservation – Turk activated the notion of cultural- and self-excavation in the accompanying sculptural works. These included: a distressed version of his The Golden Thread (2004), a maze constructed from two-way mirror that exposes its own history as it returns an imperfect reflection back to the viewer; and We Are One (2014), a large-scale neon light work pronouncing the exact number of the world’s population at 18.30 January 24th 2014, the moment the piece came into being.

Transplanted to Mallorca, “Yard” was a site reconstruction – post-industrial, post-economic, post-ownership – mapping and re-mapping Turk’s history as a vacant platform for regeneration, to be occupied at will by all.