Visual artist Gavin Turk discusses recycling history and stories as well as physical things.

Why are artists so interested in trash?

I was picking up crumpled cans of pop soda cans off the street one day, and I thought, “Oh, these are cool.” You’ve got this 3D object that’s been flattened into a 2D piece. A bit of the back comes to the front, and a bit from the side goes around to the back. They almost feel Cubist. And they still have this advert on them. But is that can still advertising Coca Cola? It’s just been thrown on the street, and someone has come along and ran it over with their car, and now it’s dirty and filthy and almost rusted. Is it anti-promotion? Or is someone going to see it and still want a Coca Cola?

It’s almost like the yang to the yin of desire. On one side, we’ve got things people desire, and then on the other, we’ve got things people get rid of.&nbsp;I love the idea that we don’t just “place” stuff in the trash heap, we “throw” it. We have to somehow eject it in a forceful way so that we can see ourselves in some distance from that thing. But quite obviously, the thing really doesn’t go away. It’s still there, it’s just gone away from you and possibly got closer to other people or to other situations.

That’s why for me the fascination with waste seems to be about fascination itself. And it’s also so available.&nbsp;Everyone knows what trash is, but we don’t all know quite why we have to deal with it.

The thing is, the sweet liquid inside is kind of worth very little. Most of the cost is in the packaging. So really what you’ve brought is this aluminum can with all this special printed graphics and stuff like that, and the engineering that went in to make it and ship it. But everyone still thinks, “No. I don’t want that,” or, “I want this, the brown, sugary liquid inside, and the can I’ll just throw away.”

I got really excited about the idea of how to remind people of this system of desire and waste we sit in. That system, for me, can be told just by picking up a can on the street.

What about boxed water? It’s a huge thing in New York City right now. It’s become this, “Oh, we’re going to do something that’s elevated,” but it’s still just bottled water.

We don’t have boxed water. I don’t even know what that is. That’s a sort of tetra pack or something, is it?

[ Interview continues <a href="https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/visual-artist-gavin-turk-on-recycling-ideas-in-your-work/">here</a>&nbsp;]

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On recycling ideas in your work

Recycling

Visual artist Gavin Turk discusses recycling history and stories as well as physical things. Why are artists so interested in trash?

Interview piece - The Creative Independent 

GAVIN TURK ON CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY’S ‘CONSPIRACY OF BLINDNESS’Lee Sharrock in conversation with <a href="https://fadmagazine.com/tag/Gavin-Turk">Gavin Turk</a> about his solo exhibition at <a href="https://fadmagazine.com/tag/ben-brown-fine-arts/">Ben Brown Fine Arts</a>, how it relates to society’s ‘conspiracy of blindness’ towards over-consumption and waste, influences from Magritte to Morandi, and his reinvention as a ‘domestic anthropologist’.&nbsp;Lee Sharrock: Is your exhibition The Conspiracy of Blindness at Ben Brown a version of your recent&nbsp; ‘Still Life’ solo show at Maruani Mercier Knokke gallery in Belgium? And where did the title come from?&nbsp;Gavin Turk: The Magrittian show title comes from the Idea that there is a conspiracy of blindness to waste. Currently, over-consumption is an ideological norm that is part of the systemic breakdown of the environment that itself challenges a habitable world.Since September last year, I have been concentrating on a series of paintings of empty packaging from stuff I have consumed. The still lifes re-frame these objects, creating portraits of waste. The shapes and colours of the objects often ‘supermarket’ familiar return the viewer to the historical and technical necessity of packaging. The show The Conspiracy of Blindness at Ben Brown gallery is a continuation of the exhibition ‘Still Life’ at Maruani Mercier gallery in Belgium that took place at the end of last year.&nbsp;You’ve described yourself as a ‘domestic anthropologist’, what do you mean by that?&nbsp;&nbsp;‘Domestic anthropology’ is a new concept I am exploring. I understand it as an exploration into the familiar items of home life, through the lens of the uncanny or the unheimlich (un-homely). Mundane objects such as the black bin bag on the doorstep reflect societal interpretations. Everyday actions like going to the local shop signify identity politics, showcasing cultural boundaries. Notions of waste become central to the search for value and by implication what is believed to be real.&nbsp;The paintings featured in The Conspiracy of Blindness are inspired by 20th Century Italian artist Giorgio Morandi, yet you have decided to depict ordinary objects such as unbranded sauce bottles and cleaning products. What is it about seemingly mundane, everyday objects that inspires you to make them focal points of your artworks?&nbsp;Giorgio Morandi has become a kind of standard in relation to the still life painting; ‘Natura Morta’ (in Italian crudely translated as dead nature)&nbsp;He painted over a thousand small pictures of a limited number of vessels, vases, cups and pots with particular attention to the light. The paintings have a minimal background, painted in his bedroom studio and are often reduced to a single line; table and wall behind.&nbsp;My paintings are of emptied packaging, taken from my kitchen and placed in my studio. I then curate mise en scene with the objects, sometimes overpainting the outside of the forms or the insides. I am interested in the graphical element of the objects; however, in this Morandi-esque process, it’s not my focus.&nbsp; I am enjoying questioning the classical mythical lens of painting, by using it to depict what would normally be discarded.&nbsp;You have a busy exhibition schedule for 2024 including a group show in France, ‘Faire Corps’ at FoundationVilla Datris’ in May and ‘Rebel Garden’ at the Musea Brugge in April. Are there any exhibitions or collaborations you’re particularly excited about this year?&nbsp;I am excited to be putting together a catalogue around this new series of still lifes, of which Darian Leader (British psychoanalyst and author) has already written an excellent essay. Following this, I am looking at various public sculptures and speaking with Museums on solo exhibitions on new works and retrospectives. News to follow soon…You are one of the OG ‘Young British Artists’, since your 1991 MA exhibition, where you presented a whitewashed studio space containing a single blue heritage plaque commemorating your presence, attracted the attention of Charles Saatchi.&nbsp; Do you ever tire of the Moniker YBA?&nbsp;Yes, I think the main point is it was a very useful shorthand to talk about a particular moment in history. I suppose I’m less interested in my past and more interested in the present. Obviously, I do like to bring art history into the present! I continue to experiment, in the search of my metier.&nbsp;As a multi-disciplinary artist, do you enjoy the audience interaction that your outdoor sculptures inspire – such as the monumental door that you exhibited in Frieze Sculpture Park a couple of years ago –&nbsp; as opposed to the less participatory experience viewers are offered through your paintings?&nbsp;I enjoy any or all forms of engagement with my work. I like the audience to be involved, whether it’s spiritually, physically or conceptually. LÂge d’Or (Green &amp; Red), 2019 was brilliant at Frieze, it’s now permanently placed in Rotterdam directly opposite the Fenix Migration Museum, as part of Sculpture International Rotterdam.&nbsp;&nbsp;I do think, however, that the painting exhibition is something of an installation. The window of the gallery has an assemblage mimicking my studio set up and within the show, each frame is carefully considered. As such it gives a sense that each work has had a lived experience, and then been recalled especially for this exhibition.During more than three decades of artistic practice, you have challenged perceived notions of value, identity, authorship and identity through your work, sometimes referencing modern masters, other times placing yourself in your artworks. Where does your inspiration come from, and what is the starting point for each oeuvre?&nbsp;For me, it all starts with a question of origin, a bit like an egg. You crack it open, and there’s this whole world of possibilities inside.&nbsp;My inspiration? It’s like a compost of art history, everyday experiences, and those lightbulb moments when something just clicks. They often sneak up on me when I’m least expecting it, when I’m deep into something else entirely. My brain’s on this constant treasure hunt for ideas, and sometimes it strikes gold when I’m looking the other way. A bit like solving a puzzle, but the pieces keep changing shape as you go. I love diving into the problem-solving aspect of art, tweaking and tinkering until it feels just right. But, you know, every solution tends to throw up a dozen more questions, which keeps the whole cycle going.&nbsp;Gavin Turk, The Conspiracy of Blindness through to 10th May 2024, <a href="https://www.benbrownfinearts.com/exhibitions/212-gavin-turk-the-conspiracy-of-blindness/">Ben Brown Fine Arts</a>Full piece can be accessed <a href="https://fadmagazine.com/2024/04/05/gavin-turk-on-contemporary-societys-conspiracy-of-blindness/">here.&nbsp;</a>

Gavin Turk - The Conspiracy of Blindness 

GAVIN TURK ON CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY’S ‘CONSPIRACY OF BLINDNESS’

GAVIN TURK ON CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY’S ‘CONSPIRACY OF BLINDNESS’Lee Sharrock in conversation with Gavin Turk about his solo exhibition at Ben Brown Fine Arts, how it relates to society’s ‘conspiracy of blindness’ towards over-consumption and waste, influences from Magritte to Morandi, and his reinvention as a ‘domestic anthropologist’. 

Interview - FAD Magzine by Lee Sharrock 

Frieze 20th Anniversary, visit Ben Brown Fine Arts at FRIEZE MASTERS Stand B13 for Seminal works by Gavin, including 'Cavey' a ‘historical blue plaque’ to commemorate work done by the artist during his time at the Royal College of Art. The blue ceramic English heritage plaque reads “Gavin Turk, Sculptor, worked here 1989 – 1991”. A commemoration of a life, it marks the presence of the artist with the most powerful and evocative of the tools that might be at his disposal - his absence. The curtain has fallen. The titles are rolling. Gavin Turk has left the stage. Death as performance. 
 
Plato’s famous allegory, tells of a hidden reality we can neither see nor know. In an unexpected twist to the tale, Cave has additionally become infamous as the piece of work that "won" Turk a fail for his Masters which he had been studying for at the Royal College of Art. Ironically, it has gone on to become regarded as one of Turk's most iconic pieces.

Ben Brown Fine Arts

Frieze 20th Anniversary, visit Ben Brown Fine Arts at FRIEZE MASTERS Stand B13 for Seminal works by Gavin, including 'Cavey' a ‘historical blue plaque’ to commemorate work done by the artist during his time at the Royal College of Art. The blue ceramic English heritage plaque reads “Gavin Turk, Sculptor, worked here 1989 – 1991”. A commemoration of a life, it marks the presence of the artist with the most powerful and evocative of the tools that might be at his disposal - his absence. The curtain has fallen. The titles are rolling. Gavin Turk has left the stage. Death as performance.

Frieze Masters 2023

Gavin Turk subverts still-life painting and says: ‘We are what we throw away’In his new series of paintings, British artist Gavin Turk presents arrangements of domestic and commercial packaging. Displayed against monochrome backgrounds, flattening the depth of field, the objects jostle for space and attention, the bright oranges, blues and highlighter-yellows of manufactured plastic countering the muted earth- and stone-tones of cardboard, jars, and eggboxes.&nbsp;While these paintings affirm the artist’s enduring interest in consumer waste – the subject of his famous Bag (2000), a bronze sculpture resembling a black bin liner, bulging with rubbish, as well as recent watercolours of single-use plastic bottles – ‘The Conspiracy of Blindness’ also engages with the work of Italian artist Giorgio Morandi, best known for his own paintings of sleekly formed domestic objects.&nbsp;(‘My art is always other people's art,’ <a href="https://www.wallpaper.com/art/gavin-turk-interview-kerze-london">Turk told us in a 2023 interview</a>, of his approach of referencing other artists in his work.)<h2 id="gavin-turk-x2018-we-are-what-we-throw-away-x2019-3">Gavin Turk: ‘We are what we throw away’</h2>‘One can travel this world and see nothing,’ said Morandi. ‘To achieve understanding it is necessary not to see many things, but to look hard at what you do see.’ Echoing the restricted palette and distinctive stillness of Morandi’s work, Turk’s paintings encourage us to ‘look hard’ at the objects furnishing our lives, brought into homes, often then buried in landfill.&nbsp;In Turk’s hands, these accumulated objects acquire a sense of abstraction. Stripped of their identifying marks and labels, removed from their original contexts, the pure form of each bottle, box, or carton is permitted to take centre stage, at once recognisable and strangely defamiliarised, beautiful and oddly alien. Begun as an attempt to catalogue his own encounters with disposable packaging – what he has termed ‘an exercise in self-portraiture’ – Turk’s paintings confront our habits of consumerism and the global ramifications of the products that surround us.&nbsp;The titles of each painting offer an index, both honest and exposing, of the items on display, restoring brand names and identities, as in the ‘Thai Dragon Siracha Hot Chilli Sauce’ and ‘Scala Vegan Basil Pesto’ of one canvas, or the tubs of ‘Delphi Foods Humous’ and boxes of ‘Maldon Sea Salt Flakes’ that recur in several paintings.&nbsp;It is as though Turk’s series mounts a two-part challenge to the viewer: What would these paintings show if they were yours? Would you be happy to display them in a gallery in London? The work is reminiscent of Michael Landy’s installation, Break Down (2000), which saw the artist offer up his personal belongings (7,226 items) for systematic destruction, dismantled by a team of workers along a conveyer belt, an inverted production line.&nbsp;Turk’s paintings subvert the conventions of traditional still-life painting. Where the lavish spreads of shellfish, fruits, and perishable flowers of 17th-century Dutch still life imply the inevitable rotting and disintegration of their contents, Turk’s plastic bottles and containers don’t so easily suggest a set of objects on the cusp of vanishing&nbsp;On the contrary, it seems almost possible that Turk’s paintings won’t outlive the very objects they depict, that his bottles of ‘Squeeze It Orange Drink’ may still be here long after we have disappeared. Turk’s new paintings confront us, boldly, with this legacy. As he so bluntly puts it: ‘We are what we throw away.’&nbsp;Gavin Turk, ‘The Conspiracy of Blindness’ is at Ben Brown Fine Arts from 15 March – 10 May 2024Full article can be read <a href="https://www.wallpaper.com/art/exhibitions-shows/gavin-turk-still-life-paintings-conspiracy-of-blindness-ben-brown-fine-arts-london">here</a>.&nbsp;

Gavin Turk Maldon Sea Salt Flakes, Cif Original Cream Cleaner, Morrisons Thick Bleach Lemon, Dr Bronner's Organic 18-in-1 Rose Pure-Castile Soap, Duvel Belgium Strong Blond, Yeo Valley Organic Whole Milk, Farm Shop Organic Free Range Eggs, 2023

Gavin Turk considers wasteful consumer culture in ‘The Conspiracy of Blindness’ at Ben Brown Fine Arts, London

Gavin Turk subverts still-life painting and says: ‘We are what we throw away’In his new series of paintings, British artist Gavin Turk presents arrangements of domestic and commercial packaging. Displayed against monochrome backgrounds, flattening the depth of field, the objects jostle for space and attention, the bright oranges, blues and highlighter-yellows of manufactured plastic countering the muted earth- and stone-tones of cardboard, jars, and eggboxes. 

Article - Wallpaper* by Rowland Bagnall

The Heong Gallery | Cambridge | 6th October - 5th February 2023

Gavin invites you to the private view of In Search of Ariadne at The Heong Gallery Cambridge Friday 7th October, 6.30pm - 8.30pm RSVP essential&nbsp;<a href="mailto:info@gavinturk.com?subject=RSVP%20PV%20Gavin%20Turk%20-%20In%20Search%20of%20Ariadne&amp;body=Hello%2C%0A%0APlease%20can%20I%20RSVP%20for%20the%20Private%20View%20of%20Gavin%20Turk%20-%20In%20Search%20of%20Ariadne%2C%20exhibition%20opening%20on%207th%20October.%0A%0A%5BInsert%20name%2Fs%20of%20guest%2Fs%5D%0A%0ABest%2C%20%0A">click here</a>.&nbsp;

Following the permanent public sculpture Ariadne Wrapped, 2022 in Cambridge Station Square - In Search of Ariadne unravels the cultural meme of the reclining figure in art. Accompanying the exhibition is a new catalogue with inclusions from Louisa Buck, Charlotte Higgins, Paul Millett &amp; Prerona Prasad, as well as installation shots of the exhibition is available to preorder for £15 + postage&nbsp;<a href="mailto:info@gavinturk.com?subject=Preorder%20In%20Search%20of%20Ariadne%20Book&amp;body=Hello%2C%20%0A%0APlease%20can%20I%20preorder%20the%20In%20Search%20of%20Ariadne%20Catalogue%20for%20%C2%A315%20%2B%202.40%20(domestic%20postage.%20%0A%0AMy%20details%20for%20address%20are%3A%20%0A%0AFull%20name%3A%20%0AAddress%20for%20postage%3A%20%0A%0ABest%2C%20%0A%0A">now</a>. 
 
Thank you to the exhibition sponsors: Ben Brown Fine Arts &amp; Reflex Amsterdam

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23.09.2021

Interview piece - The Creative Independent

On recycling ideas in your work