An invitation card from the artists degree show, showing the Union Jack taken from the cover of the ‘Sun’ newspaper, with the Artists face printed over the top wearing a beret.

This postcard accompanied Turk’s degree exhibition (where he exhibited ‘Cave’). The image is based on the front page of the British tabloid The Sun, which, on the eve of the first Gulf War in 1991, superimposed the head of a British soldier onto the Union Jack. Its headline ran: ‘Support our boys and put this flag in your window’. Turk replaced the squaddie’s head with his own, so that the beret referred to artists rather than soldiers. At the time the British media were notoriously hostile to ‘modern’ art, and Turk couldn’t resist suggesting that the press might promote artists as positive national symbols as much as they support the military.

Window

Printed image on card

An invitation card from the artists degree show, showing the Union Jack taken from the cover of the ‘Sun’ newspaper, with the Artists face printed over the top wearing a beret. This postcard accompanied Turk’s degree exhibition (where he exhibited ‘Cave’). The image is based on the front page of the British tabloid The Sun, which, on the eve of the first Gulf War in 1991, superimposed the head of a British soldier onto the Union Jack. Its headline ran: ‘Support our boys and put this flag in your window’. Turk replaced the squaddie’s head with his own, so that the beret referred to artists rather than soldiers. At the time the British media were notoriously hostile to ‘modern’ art, and Turk couldn’t resist suggesting that the press might promote artists as positive national symbols as much as they support the military.

Celebrity

Flags

Self-Portrait

Blighty 

Masks

Faces

Work on paper

An invitation card from the artists degree show, showing the Union Jack taken from the cover of the ‘Sun’ newspaper, with the Artists face printed over the top wearing a beret.

A study drawing on blueprint paper for the piece ‘Cave’.

pencil on blueprint

A study drawing on blueprint paper for the piece ‘Cave’.

Authorship

Fate

Illusion

Study for Cave

A glass top vitrine containing a beret and the front page of the ‘Sun’ newspaper portraying the artist as a soldier wearing the beret printed over the Union Jack flag.

Study for Window

Beret, newspaper & colour photocopy in glass top vitrine

Beret, newspaper & colour photocopy in vitrine

A glass top vitrine containing a beret and the front page of the ‘Sun’ newspaper portraying the artist as a soldier wearing the beret printed over the Union Jack flag.

Sculpture

The original blue plaque from 'Cave' installation encased in a Beuysian vitrine made with boards from the room walls when first shown.

In the summer of 1991 for his graduation show from the Royal College of Art, the artist exhibited a blue Heritage plaque in an otherwise empty studio which commemorated his own presence as a sculptor.

The title Cave refers to an allegorical picture of Plato, which describes a model of perception. A group of prisoners have been chained in a cave since childhood with no experience of reality other than the flickering shadows cast by the people and things moving along a path in front of a fire situated behind them. In the plaque, the artist was represented by a retrospective view of his life.

Relic (Cave)

original plaque from Cave installation in vitrine

The original blue plaque from 'Cave' installation encased in a Beuysian vitrine made with boards from the room walls when first shown. In the summer of 1991 for his graduation show from the Royal College of Art, the artist exhibited a blue Heritage plaque in an otherwise empty studio which commemorated his own presence as a sculptor. The title Cave refers to an allegorical picture of Plato, which describes a model of perception. A group of prisoners have been chained in a cave since childhood with no experience of reality other than the flickering shadows cast by the people and things moving along a path in front of a fire situated behind them. In the plaque, the artist was represented by a retrospective view of his life.

Death

The original blue plaque from 'Cave' installation encased in a Beuysian vitrine made with boards from the room walls when first shown. In the summer of 1991 for his graduation show from the Royal College of Art, the artist exhibited a blue Heritage plaque in an otherwise empty studio which commemorated his own presence as a sculptor.

An ‘historical blue plaque’ to commemorate work done by the artist during his time at the Royal College of Art. In a sky-lit wood-panelled room inside the Royal College of Art mounted on an otherwise empty wall in an otherwise empty room, a 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. While the absence of the artist, we make the art. The artist is no more and all that is left for the audience in this empty white space is to reverently imagine the work which once filled this space, while apprehending that the emptiness is the work. And so material object of the plaque frames the space and the art work frames the artist, the one somehow preceding the other in an elliptical sleight of hand, as the end frames the beginning. All that is left behind of the artist is a memorial to an implied body of work, and by extension, an implied life and worth, while the title, after 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.

Cave

Ceramic plaque in room

An ‘historical blue plaque’ to commemorate work done by the artist during his time at the Royal College of Art. In a sky-lit wood-panelled room inside the Royal College of Art mounted on an otherwise empty wall  in an otherwise empty room, a 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. While the absence of the artist, we make the art. The artist is no more and all that is left for the audience in this empty white space is to reverently imagine the work which once filled this space, while apprehending that the emptiness is the work. And so material object of the plaque frames the space and the art work frames the artist, the one somehow preceding the other in an elliptical sleight of hand, as the end frames the beginning. All that is left behind of the artist is a memorial to an implied body of work, and by extension, an implied life and worth, while the title, after 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.

Installation

An ‘historical blue plaque’ to commemorate work done by the artist during his time at the Royal College of Art. In a sky-lit wood-panelled room inside the Royal College of Art mounted on an otherwise empty wall in an otherwise empty room, a 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.

A photographic mock-up of the cover of &lsquo;Hello!&rsquo; magazine showing the Artist and his family, presented in a glass top vitrine.

Hello

Colour copy, acrylic, steel and cloth

Artist

Photographic Work

A photographic mock-up of the cover of ‘Hello!’ magazine showing the Artist and his family, presented in a glass top vitrine.

pipe

Painted bronze

Pipes are traditionally utilised as a symbol of patriarchy and intellect – from Sherlock Holmes to Bertrand Russell. In pipe (1991), a smoking instrument is transmuted into a child’s sweet. The work is inspired by the Belgian Surrealist Rene Magritte’s famous painting of a pipe, The Treachery of Images (1929). This employs a similar rebuttal – this is not a liquorice pipe but a jewel-like artwork.

Food

Pipes

Painted Bronze

A ceramic replica of the original ‘historical blue plaque’ which was shown by the Artist in his degree show at the Royal College of Art.

Cavey

Ceramic plaque

A ceramic replica of the original ‘historical blue plaque’ which was shown by the Artist in his degree show at the Royal College of Art.