This sculpture in the Station Square set against the colonnade of Cambridge Station generates echoes of a Giorgio de Chirico painting, playing with the Italian artist’s metaphysical, surreal cityscapes. At first glance to be an object covered in a dust sheet and bound with rope, on further inspection it becomes apparent that this sculpture is a trompe l’oeil and the coy cloth covering is forever fixed, the temporary surface permanent.The shape of the covered object suggests a reclining figure, in an archetypal prone pose, the mythical Ariadne saviour of Theseus now abandoned on the island of Naxos, from this classical story of forces beyond humanity. Now presented as a packaged shape forever in transportation, informed by the sound of the train the parcel lies in limbo. The criss-cross of ropes and string act like compositional or navigation lines, pointers to new perspectives.Art historically the wrapped work reminds the viewer of other artworks namely by Christo and Jean-Claude, Man Ray and even Henry Moore.In 2011 Gavin Turk installed Nail, a 12-metre bronze sculpture of a giant rusty nail protruding from the pavement, in front of St Pauls Cathedral, and in 2016 the Artist installed L’Âge d’Or a ‘larger than life’ painted bronze door in Queen Elizabeth Park. These works including the newly placed ‘Ariadne Wrapped’ are surreal symbols, that invite the audience inside a larger metaphysical maze. &nbsp;

Cast bronze on Portland stone plinth

Painted bronze and portland stone plinth

This sculpture in the train station square, appears at first glance to be an object covered in a dust sheet and bound with rope, on further inspection it becomes apparent that this sculpture is a trompe l’oeil and the coy cloth covering is forever fixed, the temporary surface permanent. The shape of the covered object suggests a reclining figure, in an archetypal prone pose, the mythical Ariadne saviour of Theseus now abandoned on the island of Naxos, from this classical story of forces beyond humanity. Now presented as a packaged shape forever in transportation, informed by the sound of the train the parcel lies in limbo. The criss-cross of ropes and string act like compositional or navigation lines, pointers to new perspectives. Art historically the wrapped work reminds the viewer of other artworks namely by Christo and Jean-Claude, Man Ray and even Henry Moore.

Ariadne

Art History

Public Art

Sculpture

This sculpture in the Station Square set against the colonnade of Cambridge Station generates echoes of a Giorgio de Chirico painting, playing with the Italian artist’s metaphysical, surreal cityscapes. At first glance to be an object covered in a dust sheet and bound with rope, on further inspection it becomes apparent that this sculpture is a trompe l’oeil and the coy cloth covering is forever fixed, the temporary surface permanent.

Ariadne Wrapped

Disembodied from any room, structure or building, this ‘larger than life’ painted bronze door, is freestanding, open at 45°’s to the frame. This internal wooden door now placed in the park has different colours painted on each side, the door shows signs of age and wear which are painted onto its surface. Its giant bronze door handle and keyhole seem to shrink the viewer. ‘I continued to look at the flowers, and in their living light I seemed to detect the qualitative equivalent of breathing -but of a breathing without returns to a starting point, with no recurrent ebbs but only a repeated flow from beauty to heightened beauty, from deeper to ever deeper meaning.’ - Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception This work invokes Magritte’s painting ‘La Victoire’ and the title references Luis Bunuel’s surreal film of the same name. It is a playful surrealist public artwork that the audience enjoys interacting with as a gateway to their imagination. L’Âge d’Or teases the audience to question notions of home, security, architecture and also the bolder concepts of inside and outside. The work can also be seen in the context of Marcel Duchamp’s door in rue Larrey and Jasper Johns’ painted bronze Ballentine beer cans. Question: When is a door not a door? Answer: When it’s ajar

L'Âge d'Or (Green & Red)

Painted bronze

Disembodied from any room, structure or building, this ‘larger than life’ painted bronze door, is freestanding, open at 45°’s to the frame. This internal wooden door now placed in the park has different colours painted on each side, the door shows signs of age and wear which are painted onto its surface. Its giant bronze door handle and keyhole seem to shrink the viewer. ‘I continued to look at the flowers, and in their living light I seemed to detect the qualitative equivalent of breathing -but of a breathing without returns to a starting point, with no recurrent ebbs but only a repeated flow from beauty to heightened beauty, from deeper to ever deeper meaning.’ - Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception This work evokes Magritte’s painting ‘La Victoire’ and the title references Luis Bunuel’s surreal film of the same name. It is a playful surrealist public artwork that the audience enjoys interacting with as a gateway to their imagination. L’Âge d’Or teases the audience to question notions of home, security, architecture and also the bolder concepts of inside and outside. The work can also be seen in the context of Marcel Duchamp’s door in rue Larrey and Jasper Johns’ painted bronze Ballentine beer cans. Question: When is a door not a door? Answer: When it’s ajar

Doors

Fate

Duchamp

Infinity

Public Sculpture

Disembodied from any room, structure or building, this ‘larger than life’ painted bronze door, is freestanding, open at 45°’s to the frame. This internal wooden door now placed in the park has different colours painted on each side, the door shows signs of age and wear which are painted onto its surface. Its giant bronze door handle and keyhole seem to shrink the viewer.

Gavin Turk’s Axis Mundi, a cover for the new ecological bore hole at Paddington Basin is a out of scale bronze facsimile of a traditional well-used sink plug. Referencing the work is Bouche-evier a work by Marcel Duchamp the cast of a plug hole. The name of the sculpture Axis Mundi means ‘Centre of the Earth’ (the point between heaven and earth where the four compass points meet), reminiscent of the Socle du Monde by Piero Manzoni. The work continues in the spirit of the artists previous public art commissions, which include a 12m bronze ‘Nail’ outside St Paul’s Cathedral and a series of freestanding painted bronze doors ‘L’Âge d’Or’ and ‘Ajar’.

Axis Mundi

Patinated bronze and steel

Latest Edit 2020:Gavin Turk’s Axis Mundi, a cover for the new ecological bore hole at Paddington Basin is a out of scale bronze facsimile of a traditional well-used sink plug. Referencing the work is Bouche-evier a work by Marcel Duchamp the cast of a plug hole. The name of the sculpture Axis Mundi means ‘Centre of the Earth’ (the point between heaven and earth where the four compass points meet), reminiscent of the Socle du Monde by Piero Manzoni. The work continues in the spirit of the artists previous public art commissions, which include a 12m bronze ‘Nail’ outside St Paul’s Cathedral and a series of freestanding painted bronze doors ‘L’Âge d’Or’ and ‘Ajar’. -----------------Gavin Turk plays with Trompe-l’Oeil and the illusion of art – encouraging the audience to question what they are seeing as well as what they value. His public works invite the passers-by to look at the world through the eyes of an artist. For Paddington Basin he has taken the witty humour of street art and loaded it with the craftsmanship and references of art history. He has created an artfully obvious cover for the new ecological bore hole by creating an out of scale facsimile of a traditional well-used sink plug. Layered in the artist’s work is Bouche-evier (Sink Stopper) a work by Marcel Duchamp which is a life sized cast of a plug hole as well as Socle du Monde by Piero Manzoni. Gavin Turk’s bronze plug is an industrial scale sculpture resembling an aged and historic giant plug which is both a whimsical artwork in a public landscape as well as having the functional purpose of a lid to the bore hole below. The work continues in the spirit of the artists previous public art commissions, which include a 12m bronze nail outside St Paul’s Cathedral and a series of freestanding painted bronze door frames referencing Magritte – both with poetic narratives engaging the audience. The name of the sculpture Axis Mundi means ‘ Centre of the Earth’ (the point between heaven and earth where the four compass points meet), which draws attention to the symbolism of the borehole and current human activity whilst being a playful reminder of the buildings location in the symbolically named Paddington Basin during this urgent and fragile time for climate and the environment.

Gavin Turk’s Axis Mundi, a cover for the new ecological bore hole at Paddington Basin is a out of scale bronze facsimile of a traditional well-used sink plug. Referencing the work is Bouche-evier a work by Marcel Duchamp the cast of a plug hole. The name of the sculpture Axis Mundi means ‘Centre of the Earth’ (the point between heaven and earth where the four compass points meet), reminiscent of the Socle du Monde by Piero Manzoni.

Gavin Turk is famous for exhibiting a blue commemorative plaque at his degree show at the Royal College of Art which read ‘Royal Borough of Kensington, Gavin Turk, Sculptor, Worked Here 1989-1991’ and promptly being refused his degree. 
&nbsp; 
William Webb Ellis is famous for inventing Rugby football whilst a pupil at Rugby School. He is commemorated with a marble plaque at the school that reads ‘with a fine disregard for the rules of football, as played in his time, first took the ball in his arms and ran with it thus originating the distinctive feature of the rugby game A.D. 1823’.&nbsp;

Gavin Turk has extensively used ‘the egg’ in his works for him it serves as a kind of signature or logo. The egg is a symbol of death and rebirth, a psychoanalytic form, it triggers the riddle ‘which came first the chicken or the egg’, as well as a reference to legend and folklore the egg form occurs in the history of art and also egg tempera that was the original painters medium.

Whilst walking on Hampstead Heath Turk came across a deflated rugby ball, which had started becoming an egg shape and with the spirit of picking the new ball up and running with it he imagined the invention of a new sport…

The artwork, a monument to the new sport, is cast in bronze and patinated to look like the augmented version of the original leather ‘eggball’. &nbsp;Installed at Rugby School, on the School playing field where the game of rugby was invented. &nbsp;It measures approximately 1.83m in height, 1.53m in diameter, and weighs 700 kg.

Birth of the Egg Ball

6ft Bronze

Gavin Turk is famous for exhibiting a blue commemorative plaque at his degree show at the Royal College of Art which read ‘Royal Borough of Kensington, Gavin Turk, Sculptor, Worked Here 1989-1991’ and promptly being refused his degree. William Webb Ellis is famous for inventing Rugby football whilst a pupil at Rugby School. He is commemorated with a marble plaque at the school that reads ‘with a fine disregard for the rules of football, as played in his time, first took the ball in his arms and ran with it thus originating the distinctive feature of the rugby game A.D. 1823’. Gavin Turk has extensively used ‘the egg’ in his works for him it serves as a kind of signature or logo. The egg is a symbol of death and rebirth, a psychoanalytic form, it triggers the riddle ‘which came first the chicken or the egg’, as well as a reference to legend and folklore the egg form occurs in the history of art and also egg tempera that was the original painters medium.Whilst walking on Hampstead Heath Turk came across a deflated rugby ball, which had started becoming an egg shape and with the spirit of picking the new ball up and running with it he imagined the invention of a new sport…The artwork, a monument to the new sport, is cast in bronze and patinated to look like the augmented version of the original leather ‘eggball’. Installed at Rugby School, on the School playing field where the game of rugby was invented. It measures approximately 1.83m in height, 1.53m in diameter, and weighs 700 kg.

Eggs

Football

Gavin Turk is famous for exhibiting a blue commemorative plaque at his degree show at the Royal College of Art which read ‘Royal Borough of Kensington, Gavin Turk, Sculptor, Worked Here 1989-1991’ and promptly being refused his degree.  

Both comic and provocative, Nail is a 12 metre bronze sculpture, treated as the title implies, to appear like a giant rusty nail. Standing at the entrance to French architect, Jean Nouvel’s shiny glass shopping centre, One New Change with the grand sixteenth century architecture of St Paul’s cathedral in the background, Nail is hammered between the ancient and modern. At the intersection of these two worlds, Nail is a nostalgic recollection of tools traditionally used by the construction industry and favoured by Turk’s archetypal white van man, now of less and less necessity in the modern architecture of One New Change. Its rustiness, meanwhile underscores the uselessness of this once useful object, while also suggesting the creep of the natural into the territory of the man-made. Not only a literal object, the nail doubles as a psychological object which suggests “nail in the coffin” and “nailed to the cross.” Rather more humorously, viewed from a certain angle, Nail appears to pin One New Change into the ground, although viewed from other angles, it hints at the empty space where what was nailed has long since been removed. A giant magnification of a miniature object, the closer the viewer stands to Nail, the more comically abstract the object appears, as by contrast, both the viewer and its surroundings appear to shrink.

Nail

Bronze - Permanent sculpture

Illusion

Both comic and provocative, Nail is a 12 metre bronze sculpture, treated as the title implies, to appear like a giant rusty nail. Standing at the entrance to French architect, Jean Nouvel’s shiny glass shopping centre, One New Change with the grand sixteenth century architecture of St Paul’s cathedral in the background, Nail is hammered between the ancient and modern.