An exhibition on the theme of dance and performance featuring contemporary artists exclusively from the UK and featuring Gavin Turk's neon work&nbsp;Star&nbsp;(2013).

Curated by Jerome Jacobs.

So Many Steps, So Little Time

An exhibition on the theme of dance and performance featuring contemporary artists exclusively from the UK and featuring Gavin Turk's neon work Star (2013). Curated by Jerome Jacobs.

Gavin Turk’s solo show, ‘Who What When Where How and Why’, opened on the 23rd November 2016 at RIBA Stirling's best new building of the year, Newport Street Gallery. The survey featured the iconic Cave, a commemorative blue plaque installation Turk exhibited in his 1991 Royal College of Art degree show.&nbsp;

A series of ‘Signature’ works, in which Turk uses his own name as a form of ready-made in order to examine ideas surrounding origin and authenticity, were also included. The signature of the artist, traditionally the valued hallmark of authority and provenance, recurred throughout ‘Who What When Where How and Why’, emerging from the canvases of Turk’s Pollock paintings; the abstract expressionist artist’s paint splatters exchanged for innumerable ‘Gavin Turk’ signatures.

Ahead of the exhibition Hirst stated, “I started collecting Gavin’s work twenty years ago. He’s an incredibly powerful artist, his work is about language and the spaces between things – about identity and being somebody and nobody, he plays with our preconceptions of what’s there and not there, of what art is and how it functions. He’s had a major impact on British art so it’s great to be able to show such an extensive collection of his work at Newport Street.”

&nbsp;

Who What When Where How and Why

Gavin Turk’s solo show, ‘Who What When Where How and Why’, opened on the 23rd November 2016 at RIBA Stirling's best new building of the year, Newport Street Gallery. The survey featured the iconic Cave, a commemorative blue plaque installation Turk exhibited in his 1991 Royal College of Art degree show. 

The Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden devoted an exhibition to the motif of the candle in the fine arts of the 20th and 21st centuries.&nbsp;Starting with one of the main works in the Frieder Burda Collection, Gerhard Richter's Candle (1982), this prominent motif in art and cultural history is explored using paintings, sculptures and installations. 
 
The exhibition examines how artists in the 20th and 21st centuries - such as Gerhard Richter, Georg Baselitz, Nam June Paik, Jeff Koons, Eric Fischl and Gavin Turk - take up the motif of the candle with its diverse pictorial traditions, vary them and place them in new contexts of meaning.

Die Kerze

The Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden devoted an exhibition to the motif of the candle in the fine arts of the 20th and 21st centuries. Starting with one of the main works in the Frieder Burda Collection, Gerhard Richter's Candle (1982), this prominent motif in art and cultural history is explored using paintings, sculptures and installations.

Now It is Permitted: 24 Wayside Pulpits was curated by Artist in Residence, Bridget Smith and the Swedenborg Society’s Director, Stephen McNeilly. Inspired by a collection of 24 New Church ‘wayside pulpits’ from the 1950s held in the archive at Swedenborg House, the exhibition featured 57 newly commissioned visionary statements from invited artists, writers, musicians, playwrights and filmmakers.

Now It is Permitted: 24 Wayside Pulpits was curated by Artist in Residence, Bridget Smith and the Swedenborg Society’s Director, Stephen McNeilly. Inspired by a collection of 24 New Church ‘wayside pulpits’ from the 1950s held in the archive at Swedenborg House, the exhibition featured 57 newly commissioned visionary statements from invited artists, writers, musicians, playwrights and filmmakers.

Now It is Permitted: 24 Wayside Pulpits

Turk collaborated with Creative Wick to throw a three-month exhibition at the Béton Brut Gallery in Hackney Wick. The exhibition took place against the backdrop of the fast changing and rapid redevelopment of Hackney Wick, which is putting the world’s largest artist community under threat. 

Turk revealed a series of new etchings derived from the emissions of his white transit van with profits from the sale of prints going towards the aims of Creative Wick CIC. The locally-produced works included Crushed Transit Van, a perfect modernist cube, a symbol of race and class, White-Van-Man’s steed reduced to a single abstract expressionist form.

“The artist&nbsp;is in transit&nbsp;and so is Hackney Wick. The exhaust&nbsp;etching,&nbsp;is&nbsp;a parting gift to the community. This collaboration between&nbsp;Béton&nbsp;Brut Gallery and&nbsp;Creative Wick&nbsp;is at once a celebration of Gavin and his connection to Hackney Wick, and the birth of&nbsp;a&nbsp;scheme that will reinvest funds towards exhibiting&nbsp;up-and-coming local artists.” - Sophie Pearce,&nbsp;Director at&nbsp;Béton Brut&nbsp;

Transit 

Turk collaborated with Creative Wick to throw a three-month exhibition at the Béton Brut Gallery in Hackney Wick. The exhibition took place against the backdrop of the fast changing and rapid redevelopment of Hackney Wick, which is putting the world’s largest artist community under threat.

Transit

NEON: The Charged Line was a major survey exhibition exploring how artists had worked with neon, from the 1960s to the present day. The exhibition encompassed a wide range of ways in which artists have experimented with light designed to be seen rather than illuminate; whether through text and language, the drawn line or an investigation into its physical and sculptural qualities.

One Twenty Five (2013)

NEON: The Charged Line was a major survey exhibition exploring how artists had worked with neon, from the 1960s to the present day. The exhibition encompassed a wide range of ways in which artists have experimented with light designed to be seen rather than illuminate; whether through text and language, the drawn line or an investigation into its physical and sculptural qualities.

NEON: The Charged Line

In the search for artistic identity the&nbsp;Exhibition&nbsp;GT&nbsp;displayed a series of&nbsp;Holy Egg&nbsp;paintings&nbsp;based on&nbsp;Lucio Fontana’s La Fine di Dio&nbsp;from the early 60’s. The exhibition&nbsp;included various Warholesque&nbsp;works including a live 16mm projected ‘Screen Test’ film.&nbsp; Also&nbsp;on show were several painted bronze ‘found objects’, most notably American Bag, a filled&nbsp;American sized&nbsp;garbage sack. Parked outside the gallery were two bikes&nbsp;‘de Bois Rond’ that the audience were able to ride in return for a signed certificate from the artist, declaring the rider a work of art.&nbsp;&nbsp; 
&nbsp; 
To compliment the exhibition&nbsp;Turk enlisted&nbsp;esteemed writer and critic Matthew Collings&nbsp;to re-enact with him the 1963&nbsp;Fontana and Jef Verheyen&nbsp;performance&nbsp;in the house of&nbsp;Louis Bogaerts&nbsp;in Knokke, where it was&nbsp;originally&nbsp;performed. 
 
"If objects gain symbolic powers, can the object be represented and put back in front of the audience in such a way that the process of acquiring value and meaning may be exposed? This is not to nullify meaning or symbolic power but to try to wrestle it free from the cliché of ‘established thought'." Gavin Turk

In the search for artistic identity the Exhibition GT displayed a series of Holy Egg paintings based on Lucio Fontana’s La Fine di Dio from the early 60’s. The exhibition included various Warholesque works including a live 16mm projected ‘Screen Test’ film.  Also on show were several painted bronze ‘found objects’, most notably American Bag, a filled American sized garbage sack.

Curated by Mo’Wax and UNKLE founder, artist and musician James Lavelle, featuring a host of contemporary artists, film makers and musicians, this exhibition showcased a series of works inspired by Stanley Kubrick. 
 
Participating artists were invited to respond to a film, scene, character or theme from the Kubrick archives, shining new perspectives onto the cinematic master’s lifework.&nbsp;James Lavelle collaborated with contemporary musicians and composers to produce a soundtrack for some of the installations, creating a multi-disciplinary experience for visitors.&nbsp; 
 
Gavin Turk presented his sculptural work The Shining (2007), referencing Kubrick’s film of the same name. Joseph Kosuth created an installation of text from Kubrick's films based on the language of Kubrick's work, Peter Kennard juxtaposed images of characters set in the War Room of&nbsp;Dr Strangelove&nbsp;with present day leaders of nuclear states, in a statement about the renewal of Trident. Other prominent artists featured in the exhibition included Doug Foster, Mat Collishaw, Doug Atkin and Sarah Lucas. 
 
The exhibition was supported by artist Christiane Kubrick, the director’s wife of 41 years, who exhibited a painting, and Jan Harlan, Kubrick’s Executive Producer for 28 years.&nbsp;The exhibition was co-curated by James Putnam.

Daydreaming with Stanley Kubrick

An exhibition of art inspired by the master film maker. 

Curated by Mo’Wax and UNKLE founder, artist and musician James Lavelle, featuring a host of contemporary artists, film makers and musicians, this exhibition showcased a series of works inspired by Stanley Kubrick. Participating artists were invited to respond to a film, scene, character or theme from the Kubrick archives, shining new perspectives onto the cinematic master’s lifework. James Lavelle collaborated with contemporary musicians and composers to produce a soundtrack for some of the installations, creating a multi-disciplinary experience for visitors. 

In a dream you saw a way to survive and you were full of joy was curated by Turner Prize­winning artist Elizabeth Price (b.1966), which opened at the The University of Manchester’s Whitworth on 10th June 2016, and went on to tour to the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea, and the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea. This was part of a series of Hayward Touring exhibitions curated by artists. 

The exhibition was staged as ‘an austere melodrama’ exploring the psychological and formal power of the horizontal, in a vast repertoire of images of the reclining or recumbent body­ in varying states of weariness, stupor, reverie, grief, death, erotic transport and languor. Installations were designed to create an immersive experience for the viewer, in which works are connected associatively, with ‘the slippery, fugitive logic of a dream’. The exhibition included sculptures, drawings, photographs, film and videos arranged in four loosely threaded sections: Sleeping, Working, Mourning and Dancing.

Featured artists included: Fikret Atay, Becky Beasley, &nbsp;Simon Bedwell, Claire Makhlouf Carter,&nbsp;Edward Onslow Ford, Loie Fuller and The Lumiére Brothers, Henry Fuseli, Richard Hamilton, Gustav Metzger, Katrina Palmer, Gavin Turk, Giulio Paolini Bridget Riley, Jo Spence, Carolee Schneeman and Francesca Woodman.

In a dream you saw a way to survive and you were full of joy

In a dream you saw a way to survive and you were full of joy was curated by Turner Prize­winning artist Elizabeth Price (b.1966), which opened at the The University of Manchester’s Whitworth on 10th June 2016, and went on to tour to the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea, and the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea. This was part of a series of Hayward Touring exhibitions curated by artists.

In a dream you saw a way to survive and you were full of joy (Whitworth Art Gallery)

In its sixth year, the critically acclaimed Sculpture in the City returned to the Square Mile with contemporary works from internationally renowned artists. 
 
Seventeen artworks in 20 locations ranging considerably in scale - from a seven-metre high cast iron head, to a series of delicate and playful lead paper chains - were thoughtfully placed between iconic architectural landmarks such as the Gherkin and the Cheesegrater. World-class public artworks were scattered across the City’s public spaces, on an urban canvas recognised across the globe. 
 
Gavin Turk's Ajar (2011) is installed in St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate Gardens. As a direct reference to the painting La Victoire&nbsp;(1939) by Rene Magritte, Ajar is a surreal gateway: a spiritual journey through the imagination, an interactive sculpture that children will enjoy as much as adults. It references Duchamp's work 11 Rue Larrey (1927), a corner door that is always open and shut. Without walls beside it, Ajar presents a choice to go around, or go through the portal.

Sculpture in the City

In its sixth year, the critically acclaimed Sculpture in the City returned to the Square Mile with contemporary works from internationally renowned artists. Seventeen artworks in 20 locations ranging considerably in scale - from a seven-metre high cast iron head, to a series of delicate and playful lead paper chains - were thoughtfully placed between iconic architectural landmarks such as the Gherkin and the Cheesegrater. World-class public artworks were scattered across the City’s public spaces, on an urban canvas recognised across the globe.

For this major exhibition, Foundling Fellow Cornelia Parker invited over sixty outstanding artists from a range of creative disciplines to respond to the theme of ‘found’, reflecting on the Museum’s heritage. 
 
Combining new and existing work with found objects kept for their significance, the exhibition unfolded throughout the Museum, interacting with historic works in the Collection and with each other. Parker’s inspiration was taken from the Museum’s eighteenth-century tokens – small objects left by mothers with their babies as a means of identification should they ever return to the Foundling Hospital to claim their child. 
 
Gavin Turk’s Nomad (2002) was installed in the Court Room of the museum, beneath Hogarth's painting, Moses Brought Before Pharaoh's Daughter (1746).

Found

For this major exhibition, Foundling Fellow Cornelia Parker invited over sixty outstanding artists from a range of creative disciplines to respond to the theme of ‘found’, reflecting on the Museum’s heritage.

This exhibition shone a light on the influence of the Punk movement in the world of art, establishing a genealogy and tracing it to present times. PUNK: Its Traces in Contemporary Art attempts to echo the presence of Punk as an attitude and as a reference for many creators.

In the exhibition, Punk appeared as an explicit reference for many artists: in the use of elements such as noise, cut-out typography, anti-design, and intentional ugliness; or by including explicit musical references to punk bands. Turk's&nbsp;Pop Up&nbsp;(2000) is fine example of a featured work drawing directly from the imagery of the punk movement as the artist transposes his own identity onto the iconic Prince of Punk.

Noise, refusal, violence, destruction, alienation, anarchy, nihilism and sexuality formed different subject-matter areas within the exhibition, and were accompanied by references to bands, texts, music, and some iconic works.

PUNK. Its Traces in Contemporary Art was an exhibition full of noise which was explicit, but was also present in the sum total of images and in contemporary art production's will to break down hierarchies, by mixing large installations, documentary traces, unique pieces, multiples, photographs, videos, painting.

Punk: Its Traces in Contemporary Art

This exhibition shone a light on the influence of the Punk movement in the world of art, establishing a genealogy and tracing it to present times. PUNK: Its Traces in Contemporary Art attempts to echo the presence of Punk as an attitude and as a reference for many creators.

Surrealism &amp; Beyond was a ‘surrealist salon’ organised by Erich Weiss on the premises of Margareta von Bartha’s villa, where she lived surrounded by her fabulous personal collection.

This exhibition a kind of tribute to forgotten avant-garde ‘shadow figures’ of art, artists that were mainly active behind the scenes: often as a statement or as a voluntary 'revolutionary' act. Surprising works were selected from Japan, Spain, Poland, the UK and Mexico. Wworks by masters like Magritte, Man Ray or Bellmer and were complemented by a section discovering the work of contemporary artists like Delvoye, Copers, Gavin Turk and Scott King that could be defined as ‘heirs’ of the surrealist spirit. 

Curated by Erich Weiss

Surrealism and Beyond

Surrealism & Beyond was a ‘surrealist salon’ organised by Erich Weiss on the premises of Margareta von Bartha’s villa, where she lived surrounded by her fabulous personal collection.

Surrealism & Beyond

The Legacy of Andy Warhol was Artipelag’s major exhibition over the 2016spring and summer period. Unlike traditional Warhol exhibitions, The Legacy of Andy Warhol was instead an attempt to broaden understandings of his influence and legacy. Warhol’s footprint is not limited to his boundary-pushing art: he has also influenced modern lifestyles and commercial areas.

In the exhibition,&nbsp;the frame of reference was Warhol’s autobiography,&nbsp;Andy Warhol From A to B and Back Again. Warhol found inspiration in daily papers and magazines, which he transformed into commercial products such as advertisements, illustrations and record sleeves. This is where Warhol’s fascination for glamour and commerce began, eventually becoming a central aspect of his entire oeuvre. The exhibition featured some 40 of these drawings from the&nbsp;1950s. Warhol’s influence on the art scene was also expressed in unabashed “appropriations” of his art, where artists such as Mike Bidlo, Richard Pettibone, Vik Muniz and Gavin Turk borrowed directly from Warhol’s imagery. These art forms were also represented in the exhibition.

Curators: Bo Nilsson, Frida Andersson, Jessica Höglund.

The Legacy of Andy Warhol

The Legacy of Andy Warhol was Artipelag’s major exhibition over the 2016spring and summer period. Unlike traditional Warhol exhibitions, The Legacy of Andy Warhol was instead an attempt to broaden understandings of his influence and legacy. Warhol’s footprint is not limited to his boundary-pushing art: he has also influenced modern lifestyles and commercial areas.

Alteria Art, supported by Collectionair and Prolab digital, presented Art Barter Dubai at Alserkal Avenue, presenting international artists alongside local artists from the UAE. The exhibition took place in March of 2016 during Art Week.

Featured Artists included: Zeinab Alhashemi, Nina Amber, Athier, Antony Cairns, Chokra, Ghada Da, Alia Dawood, Adeline de Monseignat, Vikram Divecha, Zhivago Duncan, Camilla Emson, Reem Falaknaz, Rami Farook, Darren Harvey Regan, Nick Hornby, Thomas Hutton, John Isaacs, Jumairy, Zanny Mellor, Sara Naim, Elnaz Niknani, David Noonan, Joshua Press, Jamie Shovlin, Gavin Turk, UBIK, Eloise van der Heyden.

Art Barter Dubai

Alteria Art, supported by Collectionair and Prolab digital, presented Art Barter Dubai at Alserkal Avenue, presenting international artists alongside local artists from the UAE. The exhibition took place in March of 2016 during Art Week.

Jerome Jacobs was invited by Gery Van Tendeloo to take over the BuBox for an exhibition entitled&nbsp;Forever.&nbsp;The exhibition was diverting, albeit ironic, and thought-provoking. A proliferation of polymorphous works were staged in a labyrinth that progressively revealed a variety of contemporary artists. The show combined beauty and ugliness, refinement and vulgarity, thus creating a simultaneously captivating and disturbing ambiance.

 
Visitors were forced to stand before the mirror of their own humanity, in front of their projections and biases on the makings of our contemporary society and its conflicts. At times classical, sometimes eccentric, the works explored interactions between the spiritual and material worlds, relinquishing visitors to introspection.

Jerome Jacobs was invited by Gery Van Tendeloo to take over the BuBox for an exhibition entitled Forever. The exhibition was diverting, albeit ironic, and thought-provoking. A proliferation of polymorphous works were staged in a labyrinth that progressively revealed a variety of contemporary artists. The show combined beauty and ugliness, refinement and vulgarity, thus creating a simultaneously captivating and disturbing ambiance.

Forever

Bread and Roses&nbsp;questioned the way artists define their status and position in the realm of an ever-widening economic gap: exploring the possibility of reconciling dreams of social justice with the need of artistic freedom and autonomy. At the same time, the show highlighted the tension between an artists’ rather ambivalent affiliation with the intellectual or financial elite and their responsibility for the rest of the society. The exhibition showed the ways in which this tension – which characterised the political and social conflicts in Poland at the time – &nbsp;becomes central to the art world and the figure of the artist. The exhibition presented the nuance of this issue within a&nbsp;broader international context.

The exhibition featured artists who critiqued the reality of neoliberalism, but at the same time, acknowledged that this reality rules the possibility of a&nbsp;truly emancipatory artistic practice. They postulate a&nbsp;transition towards a&nbsp;more egalitarian society, while their project simultaneously articulates the impossibility of such a&nbsp;society in our times, marked as it is by growing class division (Adamas, Argote, Fraser, Güell, Martens, Melis, Sagri, Surowiec). Other artists articulate such an endeavour in the development of a&nbsp;consistent business model (Brace Brace, Debora Delmar Corp., Kulendran Thomas, Martens, Wilson) or enter into dialogue with popular culture as tool of resistance (Turk, Metahaven, Minujin).

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Featured artists included: Jacek Adamas, Iván Argote, Art Workers Coalition, Brace Brace, Jesse Darling, Debora Delmar Corp., Deterritorial Support Group, Andrea Fraser, Nicolás Guagnini, Núria Güell, Rafał Jakubowicz, Christian Jankowski, Tobias Kaspar, Zofia Kulik, Gerard Kwiatkowski, Leigh Ledare, Zbigniew Libera, Michał Łagowski, Magdalena Malinowska, Adrián Melis, Metahaven, Marta Minujín, Teresa Murak, Daniela Ortiz, Zygmunt Piotrowski, Józef Robakowski, Daniel Rycharski, Georgia Sagri, Cindy Sherman, Santiago Sierra, Łukasz Surowiec, Christopher Kulendran Thomas, Gavin Turk, Andrew Norman Wilson and Renzo Martens presents: Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs des Plantations Congolaises

&nbsp;

Bread and Roses

Bread and Roses questioned the way artists define their status and position in the realm of an ever-widening economic gap: exploring the possibility of reconciling dreams of social justice with the need of artistic freedom and autonomy. At the same time, the show highlighted the tension between an artists’ rather ambivalent affiliation with the intellectual or financial elite and their responsibility for the rest of the society.

Exhibited at Baldwin Gallery, Turk's bronzes and shimmering dichroic&nbsp;found assemblage&nbsp;monuments presented a narrative ennobling&nbsp;of the lips we've collectively kissed: the&nbsp;loveliest and best, intimacy with their intricate propinquity. Anthropologically, it is our garbage, our 'left behind' that the future defines for our forever half-life: the universality of our basest natures in rear view. 

But our refuse also reveals our most exquisite vulnerabilities, in fragility and&nbsp;resilience: what the Heian Japanese called 'mono no aware' and Virgil&nbsp;'lacrimae rerum'-&nbsp;the aching pathos of things.&nbsp;Both created from and used by man, then furtively discarded: breath and lips and held to chest or hip.&nbsp;

With Petroleum, Turk redeemed these 'twice-manmade' fragments from our secret shame of uselessness. We are reflected, in a world that raises production above all other values, where the waste seems almost immoral: slatternly in our post-consumptive rapture.

Petroleum

Exhibited at Baldwin Gallery, Turk's bronzes and shimmering dichroic found assemblage monuments presented a narrative ennobling of the lips we've collectively kissed: the loveliest and best, intimacy with their intricate propinquity. Anthropologically, it is our garbage, our 'left behind' that the future defines for our forever half-life: the universality of our basest natures in rear view.

In January 2016, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery presented Turk’s Water Biscuit (2010) in The Box, accompanied by the release of a limited-edition print, Half and Half (2015). Half way down (or up) a classic half-pint pub glass, a circular biscuit is stuck flat across its diameter. The thickness of the glass adds an invisible, internal edge, allowing the biscuit to seemingly float. This visual effect provokes the viewer to imagine the surface of the biscuit as that of a liquid’s meniscus. The two objects powerfully expose themselves through a formal balancing act, serving to challenge each other’s everyday functions; the glass becomes an eccentric vitrine, whilst the biscuit becomes a mere place-marker.

Gavin Turk: The Box

In January 2016, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery presented Turk’s Water Biscuit (2010) in The Box, accompanied by the release of a limited-edition print, Half and Half (2015). Half way down (or up) a classic half-pint pub glass, a circular biscuit is stuck flat across its diameter. The thickness of the glass adds an invisible, internal edge, allowing the biscuit to seemingly float. This visual effect provokes the viewer to imagine the surface of the biscuit as that of a liquid’s meniscus.

So Many Steps, So Little Time

Who What When Where How and Why

Die Kerze

Now It is Permitted: 24 Wayside Pulpits

Transit

NEON: The Charged Line

GT

Daydreaming with Stanley Kubrick

In a dream you saw a way to survive and you were full of joy (Whitworth Art Gallery)

Sculpture in the City

Found

Punk: Its Traces in Contemporary Art

Surrealism & Beyond

The Legacy of Andy Warhol

Art Barter Dubai

Forever

Bread and Roses

Petroleum

Water Biscuit: The Box