Faces was an exhibition of Gavin Turk's diamond dust portfolio by the same name, in&nbsp; conjunction with Paul Stolper Gallery, London. The portfolio was comprised of seven screenprints by Gavin Turk and the 'Diamond Dust Folio', featuring work by Peter Blake, Linder, Peter Saville, Simon Periton and Peter Liversidge.

Gavin Turk: Faces Edinburgh

Faces was an exhibition of Gavin Turk's diamond dust portfolio by the same name, in  conjunction with Paul Stolper Gallery, London. The portfolio was comprised of seven screenprints by Gavin Turk and the 'Diamond Dust Folio', featuring work by Peter Blake, Linder, Peter Saville, Simon Periton and Peter Liversidge.

Jewellery designed by Gavin Turk on show and sale at Louisa Guinness Gallery

Jewellery by Contemporary Artists 2004 (2)

Jewellery designed by Gavin Turk on show and sale at Louisa Guinness Gallery

Jewellery by Contemporary Artists 2004

The central theme of the exhibition, the not quite innocent relation between artistic expression and emotional effect, is discussed on the basis of selected works by contemporary artists.

The central theme of the exhibition, the not quite innocent relation between artistic expression and emotional effect, is discussed on the basis of selected works by contemporary artists.

One Emotion (Emotion Eins)

The exhibition brought together twelve international artists whose work, in the context of the artists' house at Roche Court, explored and played with notions of the domestic object and its function. Taking as its starting point the writings of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), who investigated the relationship between an object and its name and function, the New Art Centre transformed the Artists' House into a place where domesticity is no longer quite what it seems. 

Gavin Turk's polystyrene cups cast in bronze and Anya Gallaccio's exquisite porcelain apples deny function through a change in medium. Their realism seduces us only to confound our expectations when we recognise the material: 'Ceci n'est pas une pomme', as Magritte said.

Koichiro Yamamoto's solid glass teapots and Barnaby Barford's fused milk jugs make futile attempts to pour tea into Cecile Johnson Soliz's beautiful, unglazed ceramic vessels. This negation of function through form leaves us amazed and bewildered.

These imaginative and beautifully made objects had their meaning distorted or denied through a change of context, medium or form. Set in the domestic environment of the Artists' House, they looked at once 'at home' and yet strangely out of place. Non-functional and dysfunctional, marooned in a place where they no longer quite belong, they remain very much objects to desire.

Other featured artists included LEO, Lisa Milroy, Emma Woffenden, Gereon Krebber, Susan Cutts, and Nina Saunders.

Domestic (f)utility

The exhibition brought together twelve international artists whose work, in the context of the artists' house at Roche Court, explored and played with notions of the domestic object and its function. Taking as its starting point the writings of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), who investigated the relationship between an object and its name and function, the New Art Centre transformed the Artists' House into a place where domesticity is no longer quite what it seems.

The Golden Thread was a solo exhibition of Gavin Turk for which the artist produced a single, large-scale installation that explored notions of perception and suspension, image and reality. Throughout his career Turk has explored what it means to be an artist, investigating avant-garde ideas of authorship, authenticity, originality and value, subjecting them to a rigorous and playful scrutiny.

Turk has made a sculptural version of David's&nbsp;The Death of Marat, substituting himself for the bath-bound revolutionary and also a self-portrait in wax as the dead Che Guevara in his work&nbsp;Che&nbsp;(1999). In these works, Turk turned himself into a prop – the artist as object – a device that reflects the themes of transformation, disguise and disappearance, which persist in his work.

Turk has made various signature works that fetishise his own signature, and in doing so, paid homage to the works of Piero Manzoni and Marcel Duchamp, artists who explored the way in which a work of art is conferred iconic status. This preoccupation with value and how it is or isn't assigned manifests itself in much of his sculptural work.&nbsp;Bum&nbsp;(1998), a self-portrait waxwork of Turk as a vagrant, challenged the rock-star/artist status asserted in a work like Pop. 

In turning to the street Turk followed up these themes in works like&nbsp;Pimp&nbsp;(1998), a rubbish skip in shiny black transformed into a high modernist sculpture and&nbsp;Nomad&nbsp;(2001-03), a painted bronze sculpture of a dirty sleeping bag. Other painted bronze sculptures of 'worthless objects' such as bin-bags, opened out cardboard boxes, and polystyrene cups further develop this preoccupation whilst also focusing attention on the receptivity of the viewer: how art requires a 'leap of faith' on the part of the viewer and how it requires the viewer collude with a 'performance' by momentarily suspending disbelief.

The Golden Thread was a solo exhibition of Gavin Turk for which the artist produced a single, large-scale installation that explored notions of perception and suspension, image and reality. Throughout his career Turk has explored what it means to be an artist, investigating avant-garde ideas of authorship, authenticity, originality and value, subjecting them to a rigorous and playful scrutiny.