A lose adaptation of the Samuel Beckett play, Waiting For Godot, Waiting For Gavo is a slapstick take on the uneasy, often absurd but ultimately co-dependent relationship between artists and the art market in the form of a surreal puppet show of Turk's own invention. Here the mysterious Godot is replaced by the equally elusive Gavo, while Vladimir, Estragon, Pozzo and Lucky become hand made puppet caricatures of Duchamp, Beuys, Charles Saatchi as &quot;Scratchy&quot; and Andy (Warhol), respectively - each with a face bearing an uncanny similarity to Turk. Following in the foot steps of multi-layered Turk works such as Pop and the Death of Marat, where Turk role plays famous characters from art history, Waiting For Gavo finds Turk in the role of both puppet and puppet master. Using the blunt instrument of caricature to open up the complex philosophical and political questions about art, identity, value and meaning, Waiting For Gavo playfully explores the paradox of the artist's power to control his own fate on the one hand and his powerlessness in the face of it, on the other.

Waiting for Gavo Puppets

Acrylic paint, fibreglass, clothing, hair & steel rods

Fool

A lose adaptation of the Samuel Beckett play, Waiting For Godot, Waiting For Gavo is a slapstick take on the uneasy, often absurd but ultimately co-dependent relationship between artists and the art market in the form of a surreal puppet show of Turk's own invention. Here the mysterious Godot is replaced by the equally elusive Gavo, while Vladimir, Estragon, Pozzo and Lucky become hand made puppet caricatures of Duchamp, Beuys, Charles Saatchi as "Scratchy" and Andy (Warhol), respectively - each with a face bearing an uncanny similarity to Turk.

An object that resembles a smoking pipe found and displayed by the artist in reference to Magritte &amp; Duchamp. This readymade was found by the artist; a u-bend from a drain, a transition point between private and public waste disposal. The seal to prevent contamination of smells and germs between the individual and civic pace, the shape is also reminiscent of a toilet bowl or the philosopher&rsquo;s tobacco pipe. The male accessory of traditional patriarchal values displayed as a decrepit old tube.

Drainpipe

Found object on a plinth

Pipes

Magritte

An object that resembles a smoking pipe found and displayed by the artist in reference to Magritte & Duchamp. This readymade was found by the artist; a u-bend from a drain, a transition point between private and public waste disposal. The seal to prevent contamination of smells and germs between the individual and civic pace, the shape is also reminiscent of a toilet bowl or the philosopher’s tobacco pipe. The male accessory of traditional patriarchal values displayed as a decrepit old tube.

Installation info: See documents...GT Studio confirms this work requires a 13amp supply. ***DO NOT TURN OFF THE WORK MID SEQUENCE***Sensor sits 11.1 cm from the floor. Power supply and controls to the reverse.An electronic waxwork of the artist as a laughing, drunken sailor.The odd sailor is an itinerant vagrant of the high seas trapped like a butterfly in a glass case. Hollow laughter repeating in circular patterns of jerky movement. The seaside freak as free spirit forever doomed to play out the instructions of the operator like a giant puppet. Jolly Jack tar, (union jack) colonialism. “As it hit the water the fire hissed and the sinking pipe became no more than bubbles. Jim remembered old Sampan, his teeth blackened with betel, who had given him the pipe on the other side of the globe all those years ago; how he’d predicted the fate of that infernal device, saying it would betray him and meet a watery grave. Recalling the image of Sampan only moments later himself accidentally falling off the boat brought Jim to his feet and pointing into the water, the quizzical look on his face changed, his head rolled and from the base of his stomach came a thunderous laugh.” Gavin Turk

Gentleman Jim

Life Sized Automaton

Installation info: See documents...GT Studio confirms this work requires a 13amp supply. ***DO NOT TURN OFF THE WORK MID SEQUENCE***Sensor sits 11.1 cm from the floor. Power supply and controls to the reverse.An electronic waxwork of the artist as a laughing, drunken sailor.The odd sailor is an itinerant vagrant of the high seas trapped like a butterfly in a glass case. Hollow laughter repeating in circular patterns of jerky movement. The seaside freak as free spirit forever doomed to play out the instructions of the operator like a giant puppet. Jolly Jack tar, (union jack) colonialism. “As it hit the water the fire hissed and the sinking pipe became no more than bubbles. Jim remembered old Sampan, his teeth blackened with betel, who had given him the pipe on the other side of the globe all those years ago; how he’d predicted the fate of that infernal device, saying it would betray him and meet a watery grave. Recalling the image of Sampan only moments later himself accidentally falling off the boat brought Jim to his feet and pointing into the water, the quizzical look on his face changed, his head rolled and from the base of his stomach came a thunderous laugh.” Gavin Turk

Automaton

Self-Portrait

Outsider

The Sea

Masks

Faces

Sculpture

Installation info: See documents... GT Studio confirms this work requires a 13amp supply.  ***DO NOT TURN OFF THE WORK MID SEQUENCE*** Sensor sits 11.1 cm from the floor.  Power supply and controls to the reverse. An electronic waxwork of the artist as a laughing, drunken sailor. The odd sailor is an itinerant vagrant of the high seas trapped like a butterfly in a glass case. Hollow laughter repeating in circular patterns of jerky movement. The seaside freak as free spirit forever doomed to play out the instructions of the operator like a giant puppet.

A print of the Artist as Joseph Beuys in fluorescent pink with an image of cracked glass over the top. Displayed in a white box frame.

Pink Beuys (Cracked Pain)

Acrylic silkscreen on paper

Beuys

Icons

Silkscreen

A print of the Artist as Joseph Beuys in fluorescent pink with an image of cracked glass over the top. Displayed in a white box frame.

An electronic waxwork of the artist as a laughing, drunken sailor.

The odd sailor is an itinerant vagrant of the high seas trapped like a butterfly in a glass case. Hollow laughter repeating in circular patterns of jerky movement. The seaside freak as free spirit forever doomed to play out the instructions of the operator like a giant puppet. Jolly Jack tar, (union jack) colonialism.

“As it hit the water the fire hissed and the sinking pipe became no more than bubbles. Jim remembered old Sampan, his teeth blackened with betel, who had given him the pipe on the other side of the globe all those years ago; how he’d predicted the fate of that infernal device, saying it would betray him and meet a watery grave. Recalling the image of Sampan only moments later himself accidentally falling off the boat brought 
Jim to his feet and pointing into the water, the quizzical look on his face changed, his head rolled and from the base of his stomach came a thunderous laugh.” Gavin Turk

Mechanical SculptureLife Sized Automata

Appropriation

An electronic waxwork of the artist as a laughing, drunken sailor. The odd sailor is an itinerant vagrant of the high seas trapped like a butterfly in a glass case. Hollow laughter repeating in circular patterns of jerky movement. The seaside freak as free spirit forever doomed to play out the instructions of the operator like a giant puppet. Jolly Jack tar, (union jack) colonialism.

A waxwork of Che Guevara based on the photograph famously taken to prove his death.

Alberto Korda’s famous 1960 photograph of Cuban revolutionary hero, Che Guevara, has come to stand for revolution in all its forms. A second famous image of Che, on which Turk’s ‘Death of Che’ is based, was taken in 1967 by the CIA-led Bolivian troops that executed him. For this photograph the soldiers dressed Che’s dead body in his military fatigues and propped up his head to mimic the Korda image. In Turk’s recreation, the artist plays the role of the revolutionary martyr, connecting the political use of Che’s image with that of Marat’s in his previous waxwork, ‘Death of Marat’.

Death of Che (2)

Waxwork & concrete

Revolution

Death

A waxwork of Che Guevara based on the photograph famously taken to prove his death.

Death of Che

A life size waxwork of Che Guevara in the pose of Warhol’s Elvis and dressed in army fatigues and a beret pointing a revolver.

Waxwork in brass, wood and glass vitrine

A life size waxwork of Che Guevara in the pose of Warhol’s Elvis and dressed in army fatigues and a beret pointing a revolver.

Warhol

Elvis

Alchemy

A life size waxwork of the Artist as a tramp.

Another Bum

Homeless

A bronze figure of gnomic image taken from the Magritte painting 'le stropiat' with several pipes sticking out of his face.

Cripple I

Painted bronze

A bronze figure of gnomic image taken from the Magritte painting 'le stropiat' with several pipes sticking out of his face.

Painted Bronze

Pop is a waxwork figure of the artist as Sid Vicious in the pose of Andy Warhol's Elvis Presley, which imagined the be-quiffed star as a gunslinging cowboy - the original king of Pop as celebrated by the original "king" of Pop Art. A homage to both, Pop finds Turk adopting the same rebel snarl with the curled upper lip, not as the King of Pop but the dark Prince of punk. While Elvis was a sanitised icon of the music industry given a rebellious makeover by Warhol, Sid was a natural outsider who found himself somewhat accidentally at the heart of pop culture. Both came to untimely and sticky ends, sucked up and spat out by the same system, with a heavy dose of self-destruction thrown in for good measure. Certainly, there was nothing glossy or shiny or bright about the respective ends of these two nemeses. But if Pop is a comment on the nature of celebrity and the inbuilt self-destruction of the star system, which likes its martyrs young and damaged - with not a small nod at the martyrdom expected of artists should they ever hope to see their name up in lights, also - it is also a wry take on the commodification of culture, in which rebels and heroes, artists, art works and icons are reduced to products whose value is determined by the arbitrary randomness of the market. Removed from the mean streets of punk's DIY roots, this Sid Vicious is already a museum object, a historical curiosity in a glass vitrine to be gazed upon at a safe distance. No longer a threat, this Sid Vicious may be pointing his gun, but the only things his piece is firing, are blanks. And what of The Artist? Once regarded as a outsider, has the market rendered Him an impotent and antiquated museum curiosity too? Has the gunslinger been relegated to the realm of cliche, no longer a threat but taken hostage by the very system he hoped to challenge? Is he now responsible for writing his own ransom note? Or is there still a possibility that he may yet lay claim to the mantra made famous twice, first by Frank Sinatra and then by Sid that, right to the end, glass vitrine and all,

end, he did it "My Way"?

Pop is a waxwork figure of the artist as Sid Vicious in the pose of Andy Warhol's Elvis Presley, which imagined the be-quiffed star as a gunslinging cowboy - the original king of Pop as celebrated by the original "king" of Pop Art. A homage to both, Pop finds Turk adopting the same rebel snarl with the curled upper lip, not as the King of Pop but the dark Prince of punk. While Elvis was a sanitised icon of the music industry given a rebellious makeover by Warhol, Sid was a natural outsider who found himself somewhat accidentally at the heart of pop culture. Both came to untimely and sticky ends, sucked up and spat out by the same system, with a heavy dose of self-destruction thrown in for good measure. Certainly, there was nothing glossy or shiny or bright about the respective ends of these two nemeses. But if Pop is a comment on the nature of celebrity and the inbuilt self-destruction of the star system, which likes its martyrs young and damaged - with not a small nod at the martyrdom expected of artists should they ever hope to see their name up in lights, also - it is also a wry take on the commodification of culture, in which rebels and heroes, artists, art works and icons are reduced to products whose value is determined by the arbitrary randomness of the market. Removed from the mean streets of punk's DIY roots, this Sid Vicious is already a museum object, a historical curiosity in a glass vitrine to be gazed upon at a safe distance. No longer a threat, this Sid Vicious may be pointing his gun, but the only things his piece is firing, are blanks. And what of The Artist? Once regarded as a outsider, has the market rendered Him an impotent and antiquated museum curiosity too? Has the gunslinger been relegated to the realm of cliche, no longer a threat but taken hostage by the very system he hoped to challenge? Is he now responsible for writing his own ransom note? Or is there still a possibility that he may yet lay claim to the mantra made famous twice, first by Frank Sinatra and then by Sid that, right to the end, glass vitrine and all, end, he did it "My Way"?

Celebrity

Punk

Pop is a waxwork figure of the artist as Sid Vicious in the pose of Andy Warhol's Elvis Presley, which imagined the be-quiffed star as a gunslinging cowboy - the original king of Pop as celebrated by the original "king" of Pop Art. A homage to both, Pop finds Turk adopting the same rebel snarl with the curled upper lip, not as the King of Pop but the dark Prince of punk. While Elvis was a sanitised icon of the music industry given a rebellious makeover by Warhol, Sid was a natural outsider who found himself somewhat accidentally at the heart of pop culture.