A group exhibition of tapestries by contemporary artists, in association with the Rug Company and curated by Banners of Persuasion.

Demons, Yarns & Tales (London)

A group exhibition of tapestries by contemporary artists, in association with the Rug Company and curated by Banners of Persuasion.

Demons, Yarns & Tales (The Dairy Art Centre)

An exhibition of British and American artists at Galleria Il Cerchio in Italy

American and British Artists

An exhibition of British and American artists at Galleria Il Cerchio in Italy

Gavin Turk's exhibition at Aeroplastics Contemporary in Brussels brought together a large selection of his works, from sculptures depicting the artist in wax to works in painted bronze, while also casting an eye to his self-portraits silkscreened on canvas and his aquarelles.

His work questions the value, the authenticity, the originality and the integrity of art. To this end, the artist parodies famous contemporary art-works, and examines the validity of personality cults devoted to certain of his confrères. He is the apparent subject of his oeuvre, but who is really hiding behind this de-multiplied image of Gavin Turk? Audiences were invited to ponder this with his superb wax self-portrait, Somebody's Son, and his silkscreens, such as the Elvis Dyptic.

Turk also draws from everyday life, still questioning value and appearance. Manzonian Tube is far from the carboard toilet-paper tube it appears to be, and the deceptive Habitat and Ziggy Purple are not simply sleeping bags. Working bronze and polyester to hyper-realistic effect Turk underlined the contradiction of the objects’ existence, calling to question ideas and beliefs born of habit.

Turk revealed the finesse of a watercoloured cardboard box with Open Box, and the results of his urinary stream upon metallic paint as just another mode of anointing the canvas in Untitled Anthropomorphic Piss Painting.

Running concurrently was an exhibition featuring work by four young London-based artists entitled You know I know He know We know. The sculptures of Toby Christian explored the concept of artifice, the installations of Tom Crawford examined the conceptual manipulation of the pictorial image, Ross Downes introduced us to his art, and Jim Hollingworth (JIMP) presented morbid fascinations from daily life.

Gavin Turk

Gavin Turk's exhibition at Aeroplastics Contemporary in Brussels brought together a large selection of his works, from sculptures depicting the artist in wax to works in painted bronze, while also casting an eye to his self-portraits silkscreened on canvas and his aquarelles.

A group exhibition that ‘brings together works that examine the conceptual and formal practice of artists canceling, erasing and removing elements from their work.

A group exhibition that ‘brings together works that examine the conceptual and formal practice of artists canceling, erasing and removing elements from their work.

Cancelled, Erased & Removed

Burnt Out, at Kunsthaus Baselland,&nbsp;was Gavin Turk’s first solo show in Switzerland. The exhibition highlighted the impressive breadth of Turk’s artistic oeuvre, including bronze works, ready-mades, wooden sculptures, silk screens and his wax figure, Somebody’s Son&nbsp;(2007). The latter shows a Queen’s Guard bearing the artist’s traits in one of those typical sentry boxes that mark London’s traditional tourist image. 

Questions of identity, authority, authenticity, and their associated values were posed in the show.&nbsp;In&nbsp;Faded Glory&nbsp;(2007) two faces are blended: Turk’s and Elvis Presley’s. Coated with a yellow layer of paint, the model barely shines through. Details disappear, as do memories — but who is actually remembered?

Relations&nbsp;(2005) is a store sign made of wood bearing the two words “Gavin TURK”.&nbsp;Turkey Foil Box XL, in contrast, contains the artist’s name in an existing ready-made, a piece of packaging foil that refers to the process of packaging — an act designed to enhance the value of something, or to protect an object whose material and non-material value has already been augmented.

Most of the works displayed at the exhibition addressed the issue of waste.&nbsp;Waste&nbsp;(2006) is a garbage bag painted in black and cast in bronze. A garbage bag, a stand-in for the enormous amount of waste discarded by today’s societies, becomes a monument and memorial made of indestructible material.&nbsp;Painted Bronze III&nbsp;(2004/06) features two scrunched beer cans. 

Turk’s works&nbsp;Spent Match&nbsp;(2005) and&nbsp;Ariadne&nbsp;(2006) are miniature sculptures affecting viewers’ emotions in unexpected and direct ways. The spent match and the apple eaten up to the core, both made of painted bronze, radiate a poetic presence, and question our way of dealing with artworks and everyday objects as well as the value and status we ascribe to them.

Burnt Out Fire&nbsp;and&nbsp;Ash Pile&nbsp;(both 2008) are both made of bronze, and may be interpreted as an ephemeral, but physically solidified ready-made of an affluent high-performance society that alternates between unbridled enthusiasm, the constant craving for something new, and the threat of burnout.

Burnt Out

Burnt Out, at Kunsthaus Baselland, was Gavin Turk’s first solo show in Switzerland. The exhibition highlighted the impressive breadth of Turk’s artistic oeuvre, including bronze works, ready-mades, wooden sculptures, silk screens and his wax figure, Somebody’s Son (2007).

The playful antagonism of the title perfectly captured the paradoxes in this show perfectly. The crude aggression of works made by the act of urination brought to a surprising halt by the beauty, craftsmanship and organic fantasy of the works seen in the gallery. These very different works by two artists who were friends and collaborators in life, but were from different genders and generations, one still active, the others life cut short by an untimely death. 

Helen Chadwick’s piss flowers made in 1991 and 1992, (only four years before she died), are poetic casts of the cavities made by urinating in the snow have fallic and labial forms: pistons and stamens, sprouted in isolation from the gallery floor like mushroom flowers. The stage for these was set by the copper and cobalt organic forms of Gavin Turk’s piss paintings, part of a series first made in 2007 during a performance at Riflemaker Gallery London. Visitors to the opening of the artist’s Me As Him exhibition (an appropriation sampling riff on Andy Warhol’s camouflage fright wig series) were invited to urinate on a series of copper prepared canvases put out in the back yard of the gallery. The resulting organic explosions were then exhibited in the elegant toilets of Sotheby’s Auction House. 

The images blatantly steal an idea done before many times, memorably by Warhol and his factory: the act of mark making using personal body fluids. The great recycler of imagery and inventor of cliché is replayed by the younger artist as an act of crass vandalism on authentication and respect for one’s elders. The intellectual and formal degeneration of the Turk flowers, were played off against the formal elegance of Helen Chadwick’s casts. Despite the instinctive repulsion felt by the nature of the materials and the corrosive nature of the recycling, the Turk imagery beguiled audiences with its spurts, flourishes and complex fractals. It seems most pertinent that the ‘Dance Off’ of these great piss works was played out in home town of Viennese actionism and the oriental burnished baroque of Gustav Klimt.

Piss Off

The playful antagonism of the title perfectly captured the paradoxes in this show perfectly. The crude aggression of works made by the act of urination brought to a surprising halt by the beauty, craftsmanship and organic fantasy of the works seen in the gallery.