Ha ha ha! was a solo show by Gavin Turk at Almine Rech, Paris, featuring some of the artist’s iconic sculptural and painted bronze works including the self-memorialising Gentleman Jim (2005), Inside Outside (2006) and Painted bronze III (2004/2006). 

Turk references Duchamp, the great artist of nihilism. His urinal-as-art, Fountain&nbsp;(1917), took a formerly banal and despised object and transformed it into art through the artist’s signature. The iconic artist used honed craft techniques and materials to produce his tompe l’oeils of sugar cubes. Almost a century later Turk emulated this work, questioning what is the valued object and what is the shadow recast in terms of society’s rejects: the homeless, the bin bag, cigarette butts.

Ha ha ha!

Ha ha ha! was a solo show by Gavin Turk at Almine Rech, Paris, featuring some of the artist’s iconic sculptural and painted bronze works including the self-memorialising Gentleman Jim (2005), Inside Outside (2006) and Painted bronze III (2004/2006).

A group exhibition representing 'Englishness'.

England Their England

A group exhibition representing 'Englishness'.

This exhibition told of heroes and their images in art stretching from the 19th century until the present day. In the 20th century, artists continuously rediscovered heroic modes of expression, sometimes self-mockingly, such as Martin Kippenberger and Andy Warhol, and sometimes with a tragic, existential flavour, such as Jean Fautrier, Joseph Beuys and Wols. 

(my private) HEROES deliberately avoided presenting unambiguous definitions of the heroic. Instead, it presented a much wider approach to themes such as idol and star, perpetrator and victim, and wounds and martyrdom.

The exhibition called into question the very nature of the hero. It investigated the ways in which contemporary artists portray themselves and work.

(my private) Heroes

Marta Herford Museum

This exhibition told of heroes and their images in art stretching from the 19th century until the present day. In the 20th century, artists continuously rediscovered heroic modes of expression, sometimes self-mockingly, such as Martin Kippenberger and Andy Warhol, and sometimes with a tragic, existential flavour, such as Jean Fautrier, Joseph Beuys and Wols.

Art Out of Place

An exhibition of works by the YBA&rsquo;s held in Oslo.

London Calling. Y(oung) B(ritish) A(rtists) Criss-Crossed

An exhibition of works by the YBA’s held in Oslo.

White Elephant at Sean Kelly was Gavin Turk’s first major exhibition at the New York gallery. The exhibition featured new paintings and sculptures. In the Main Gallery a group of works from the White Elephant series extended Turk’s investigation into ideas of authorship, authenticity and identity. 

The museum scale canvases depict the artist, in the personae of Che Guevara, Elvis Presley and Joseph Beuys, all in the style of Andy Warhol. This subtle and characteristic appropriation of identity, if not immediately apparent to the viewer, is alluded to in Turk’s purposely-misspelled title “Che Gavara” utilised for one of the works. Installed in Gallery 1 was Pile, a painted bronze sculpture of a pile of garbage bags, which implicitly gives value, historical importance and permanence to superfluous refuse. 

In this work and others, Turk has explored the way in which a work of art is conferred with iconic status and value. Self Portrait with Hands Around Neck, a frame previously used for a Warhol painting with a blank canvas, signed by the artist, and Metaphysical Nail, a sheet of white paper nailed to the wall and signed by the artist, specifically comment on and question the artist’s signature as sign of identity and value. These works take rigorously, yet playfully, amble through the crisis of originality and value in art, with wry humour, informed elegance and a nod to the work of Rene Magritte and Marcel Duchamp amongst others.

White Elephant