Kerze is a series of&nbsp;meticulously rendered still lifes of candles based on Gerhard Richter’s renowned photorealist paintings, though in typical Turk fashion the recognisable imagery is subverted by presenting the candles as recently extinguished, their curls of smoke trailing up the canvas.

Over the last three decades, Turk has relentlessly challenged notions of value, authorship, and identity in his work, often by boldly referencing the work of modern masters and infusing it with his own identity and hand as an artist. His work is at once provocative, disruptive, humorous, mischievous, and erudite, earning him the distinction as one of the most interesting and notorious British artists of his time.

‘I first came to notice this painting (Kerze, 1983) in 1988 when it was used on the album cover of Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth. It seemed to extend the mood of the music and got lodged in my subconscious; now more than 30 years later, this feeling of pathos has started to reappear in my work.’ - Gavin Turk

The exhibition brought together 13 paintings based on Richter’s iconic series from the early 1980s of sublimely elegant and disquietingly haunting photorealist paintings of lit candles. Singular and in groupings up to three, arranged in hazily lit interior spaces, the still lifes are framed by the horizontal lines of tabletops and verticality of obscured curtains or windows in the background. In Turk’s faithful iterations, the candles have recently been snuffed out, their delicate threads of waxy smoke illuminating the canvas, altering the narrative, and shifting the symbolism inherent to the subject matter.

Turk is fascinated by objects and imagery connected to the psyche and the surreal: candles, pipes, eggs, doors, windows, clouds, and smoke appear throughout his body of work. He consciously incorporates art historical references into his work, layering them mischievously like clues. Turk muses, ‘The candle is a metaphysical symbol, it is a clock, it is a guide, the lit flame is a burning energetic sprite; extinguishing it creates smoke, an afterlife, a holy ghost, a veil, a messenger.’

This body of work oscillates between a romantic or tragic dialogue with history and a puckish rhetoric questioning authenticity and identity. These memento mori works can be approached through a labyrinthine set of interpretations, nodding to the ‘tubism’ of Fernand Léger and graphic juxtapositions of Surrealist René Magritte, to the powerful symbolism evoked by Richter in depicting his candles, a charged motif that has been referenced throughout art history for centuries.

The narrative formed within the paintings poses the question: Why have the candles gone out?

KERZE 

Kerze

Appropriation

Art History

Artist

Kerze is a series of meticulously rendered still lifes of candles based on Gerhard Richter’s renowned photorealist paintings, though in typical Turk fashion the recognisable imagery is subverted by presenting the candles as recently extinguished, their curls of smoke trailing up the canvas.

KERZE

To celebrate the launch of his new book&nbsp;Cave&nbsp;Drawings&nbsp;&amp; an exhibition of the&nbsp;Cave&nbsp;Drawings&nbsp;series. In the words of Gavin ‘Cave&nbsp;Drawings are a lawless series of abstract subject-less pencil line work, where an ‘automatic’ surreal zone appears’.&nbsp;

Cave Drawings installation

An exhibition and book launch 

To celebrate the launch of his new book Cave Drawings & an exhibition of the Cave Drawings series. In the words of Gavin ‘Cave Drawings are a lawless series of abstract subject-less pencil line work, where an ‘automatic’ surreal zone appears’. 

Cave Drawings

The major exhibition, featuring some of Britain's most provocative artists, explored how ideas rooted in horror have informed the last 50 years of creative rebellion. Looking beyond horror as a genre, the show took it as a reaction and provocation to troubling times, the last five decades of British history recast in a story of cultural shapeshifting. The exhibition told a story of turbulence, unease and creative revolution that lives at the heart of the British cultural psyche in three acts –&nbsp;Monster, Ghost&nbsp;and&nbsp;Witch.&nbsp;

Turk's contribution to the show was&nbsp;Ghost Pop, a&nbsp;life size screen-print&nbsp; showing the artist as Sid Vicious in the pose of Andy Warhol's Elvis, which iconised the bequiffed star as the gunslinging cowboy, the original king of Pop. A homage to both, Turk adopts the same rebel sneer with curled upper lip, now a faded self-portrait as Sid Vicious in the pose of Elvis. The piece unsettles with its paradoxical clash of ghostly presence and absence, familiarity and otherness.&nbsp;

The exhibition featured over 200 artworks and&nbsp;culturally significant objects, telling a story of the turbulence, unease and creative revolution at the heart of the British cultural psyche in three acts –&nbsp;Monster, Ghost&nbsp;and&nbsp;Witch.&nbsp;

Turk's work featured alongside more than 200&nbsp;artworks and&nbsp;culturally significant objects by artists including:&nbsp;A Guy Called Gerald, Barry Adamson, Hamad Butt, Adam Chodzko, Kevin Cummins, Graham Dolphin, Tim Etchells, Angus Fairhurst, Paul Finnegan, Laura Grace Ford, Ghostwatch, Lucy Gunning, Paul Heartfield, Susan Hiller, Matthew Holness &amp; Richard Ayoade, Stewart Home, Derek Jarman, Michael Landy, Richard Littler (Scarfolk), Jeremy Millar, Haroon Mirza, Drew Mulholland, Pat Naldi &amp; Wendy Kirkup, Cornelia Parker, Steve Pemberton, Nic Roeg, Nick Ryan, Scanner (Robin Rimbaud), Adam Scovell, Sensory Leakage, Reece Shearsmith, David Shrigley, Iain Sinclair, Kerry Stewart, Tricky, Gavin Turk, Richard Wells, Rachel Whiteread&nbsp;and&nbsp;Words &amp; Pictures.

The Horror Show! poster 

Ghost Pop

The major exhibition, featuring some of Britain's most provocative artists, explored how ideas rooted in horror have informed the last 50 years of creative rebellion. Looking beyond horror as a genre, the show took it as a reaction and provocation to troubling times, the last five decades of British history recast in a story of cultural shapeshifting. The exhibition told a story of turbulence, unease and creative revolution that lives at the heart of the British cultural psyche in three acts – Monster, Ghost and Witch. 

The Horror Show! A Twisted Tale of Modern Britain

In Search of Ariadne&nbsp;coincided with the permanent installation of Turk's&nbsp;Ariadne Wrapped&nbsp;outside Cambridge Rail Station.&nbsp;The exhibition, at the Heong Gallery, unravels the cultural meme of the reclining figure in art.

The form of the sculpture is familiar from centuries of depictions of reclining forms from Michelangelo to Henry Moore. Turk uses this familiarity to subvert the viewers expectations. His Ariadne is under cover, forever hidden. Wrapped and secured with ropes, she seems to be in transit; between places; on her way. 

Like Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s wrapped objects and buildings, Turk’s wrapped sculpture brings form and volume into sharp focus by obscuring detail and specifics. In the vein of Man Ray’s surrealist masterpiece, The Enigma of Isidore Ducasse, Turk’s Ariadne also transforms a well-known form to one that is mysterious and unknowable. 

The exhibition at The Heong Gallery explores the metaphysical, art historical, and social underpinnings of Ariadne Wrapped, giving visitors the tools to unwrap and unpack the form, context, and narratives wrapped up in the sculpture. 

‘The reclining figure is now a chrysalis transforming into something else’ -&nbsp;Gavin Turk

In Search of Ariadne 01

Ariadne

In Search of Ariadne coincided with the permanent installation of Turk's Ariadne Wrapped outside Cambridge Rail Station. The exhibition, at the Heong Gallery, unravels the cultural meme of the reclining figure in art.

In Search of Ariadne

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An explosion of colour in the galleries, drinks in the courtyard and artist-designed flags flying down London’s iconic Piccadilly – it's summer at the RA.

Summer at the RA is not just a time of year, it’s the world’s most joyful art experience. Run without interruption since 1769, the&nbsp;Summer Exhibition&nbsp;showcases art in all forms, from prints, painting, film and photography, to architectural works and sculpture by invited artists, Royal Academicians and emerging talent.

After two years in winter, it's back where it should be. The theme chosen by the exhibition's coordinator, Alison Wilding RA, is ‘Climate’. Whether as a crisis or opportunity, or simply our everyday experience, it is an all-embracing subject.

Whether you’re an experience seeker, a budding art collector or a culture-craving family, we know you’ll find the art for you: the exhibition features two rooms of prints selected by Grayson Perry RA, a structure made of elephant dung bricks, and new work by the Singh Twins. Outside this year is a large-scale immersive installation bringing nature and water to the courtyard, by Spanish artist Cristina Iglesias.

&nbsp;

Royal Academy of Arts

  An explosion of colour in the galleries, drinks in the courtyard and artist-designed flags flying down London’s iconic Piccadilly – it's summer at the RA. Summer at the RA is not just a time of year, it’s the world’s most joyful art experience. Run without interruption since 1769, the Summer Exhibition showcases art in all forms, from prints, painting, film and photography, to architectural works and sculpture by invited artists, Royal Academicians and emerging talent.

Summer Exhibition 2022

For their 6th Edition in 2022, Contemporary Sculpture Fulmer once again presented a Spring to Autumn survey exhibition highlighting the work of exceptional contemporary sculptors, from emerging talents to more established names. This edition included works of many mediums and disciplines, from the familiar to the surprising, conceptual works and even painting.

Turk presented his Kissing Stone (2012), a used granite curb stone from Hackney, London. Historically, granite paving stones signified investment and longevity, the road was a permanent placing, whereas the newly formed concrete or cement replacements give it a transient quality. The viewer is asked to interact with the stone by kissing it, reversing the usual ‘do not touch the art’ barrier between the viewer and the artwork.

Thus, the viewer becomes part of the performance, one corner of the kissing stone is smoothed through a process that appears to be centuries of kissing. The work draws upon traditions and mythic rituals of interaction with sculptural objects such as the rubbing of Buddhas belly or St. Peter’s foot in the Vatican, and the Blarney Stone, which when kissed endows the kisser with the ‘gift of the gab’. The small standing stone alludes to a mystical marker of something buried underground.

Also featured were works by Matt Ager • Adam Buick • Josephine Chime • Matthew Darbyshire • Jean-Philippe Dordolo • Tim Ellis • James Fuller • Anna Gonzalez Noguchi • Emma Hart • Yeni Mao • Marco Miehling • Paul de Monchaux • David Murphy • Ryan Orme • Milly Peck • Barry Reigate • Jakob Rowlinson • Andrew Sabin • Daniel Solomons • Rosie Grace Ward &amp; Grace Woodcock.

6th Edition, Contemporary Sculpture Fulmer 

For their 6th Edition in 2022, Contemporary Sculpture Fulmer once again presented a Spring to Autumn survey exhibition highlighting the work of exceptional contemporary sculptors, from emerging talents to more established names. This edition included works of many mediums and disciplines, from the familiar to the surprising, conceptual works and even painting.

Me, Myself, I: Artists’ Self-Portraits&nbsp;at the RWA, Bristol provided historical context to contemporary selfie culture through an exploration of self-portraiture over the last three hundred years. The exhibition, curated by Tessa Jackson OBE,&nbsp;explored the ways artists&nbsp;have imagined and presented themselves: from the highly personal and psychological to the controversial and political.

Turk’s Identity Crisis (1994) was on display as part of the exhibition. The piece is a photographic mock-up of a cover of Hello! magazine featuring the artist and his family presented on a light box in the style of an advertisement. The amusingly prescient work higbhlights how the complexities of an artist’s practice can be lost when they are used to feed a mainstream appetite for gossip, lifestyle and celebrity.

Me, Myself, I: Artists’ Self-Portraits&nbsp;included over 80 artworks by major artists who challenged social norms and defied conventions, who questioned identity, gender and representation ahead of their time, and who have been able to think afresh in an ever-changing world.&nbsp;The exhibition was a timely re-examination of a fundamental area of art history that brought together work from the 1720s to the 2020s.

Featured artists included Grayson Perry, Tracey Emin, Sonia Boyce, Antony Gormley, Gillian Wearing, Harold Offeh,&nbsp;Shani Rhys James,&nbsp;Shanti Panchal, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Angelica Kauffman,&nbsp;Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Lucian Freud, Patrick Heron,&nbsp;Tony Bevan, Madame Yevonde&nbsp;and many more.

Identity Crisis, Gavin Turk, 1994

Me, Myself, I: Artists’ Self-Portraits at the RWA, Bristol provided historical context to contemporary selfie culture through an exploration of self-portraiture over the last three hundred years. The exhibition, curated by Tessa Jackson OBE, explored the ways artists have imagined and presented themselves: from the highly personal and psychological to the controversial and political.

Me, Myself, I: Artists’ Self-Portraits 

4 was a stunning ceramics exhibition featuring artists Lawson Oyekan, William Plumptre, Nicola Tassie and Gavin Turk.

Curated by Rebecca Scott,&nbsp;Gallery Director at Cross Lane Projects, the group exhibition was designed to foreground&nbsp;the diverse ceramic practices of four leading contemporary artists.

The inclusion of Gavin Turk’s En Face, a series of 72 clay busts of his own head that resulted from an interactive performance, The Bust Party, which took place in his studio in April 2010, provided a counterbalance to the sincerity of the other artists in ‘4’.

Turk is renowned for his irreverent commentary on the art world and art, and En Face is no different, questioning the ceramic traditions that value handwork epitomised in Soetsu Yanagi’s influential text ‘The Unknown Craftsman’. The sculptures form an exquisite corpse completed by many untrained hands, questioning authorship whilst simultaneously commentating on the ego of the artist-maker and challenging the value of art – or craft – itself.

The four completely different artists were brought together through a single material that explores the uniqueness of human existence. Through it, they connected not only with each other, but also to a global history of material culture.

4 was a stunning ceramics exhibition featuring artists Lawson Oyekan, William Plumptre, Nicola Tassie and Gavin Turk. Curated by Rebecca Scott, Gallery Director at Cross Lane Projects, the group exhibition was designed to foreground the diverse ceramic practices of four leading contemporary artists.

4 at Cross Lane Projects

Since 1893, the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium has held Jacques Louis David's masterpiece, The death of Marat (1793). In order to bear witness to the central position of this painting in the advent of modern art, the Royal Museums dedicated an exhibition to this masterpiece of their collections. In an unprecedented approach to David's artwork, the exhibition combined historical and contemporary views, as well as a scientific approach.

The exhibition was structured in three sections to offer the public new understandings of David's work. The first scientific section presented the results of the material and technical pluridisciplinary study entitled "Face to Face" conducted on The death of Marat, which revealed – for the first time – the underlying sketch of the masterpiece.&nbsp;In a second, historical section, studio replicas conserved in Reims, Dijon and Versailles were presented, as well as a version belonging to a private collection (Paris). 

Finally, this section will be completed by contemporary interpretations by Gavin Turk and other artists such as Picasso, Ai Weiwei, Jean-Luc Moerman, Jan Van Imschoot, and Rachel Labastie. Displayed in the exhibition was Turk’s Death of Marat, a waxwork of the artist as Jean Paul Marat on his death bed, based on the painting of the same name by Jacques-Louis David.

Death of Marat, Gavin Turk, 1998

Since 1893, the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium has held Jacques Louis David's masterpiece, The death of Marat (1793). In order to bear witness to the central position of this painting in the advent of modern art, the Royal Museums dedicated an exhibition to this masterpiece of their collections. In an unprecedented approach to David's artwork, the exhibition combined historical and contemporary views, as well as a scientific approach.

The Death of Marat

As part of Nouvelles Renaissances 2022, the theme of the festival adopted by all the Monuments and Gardens of the Loire Valley, Château du Rivau presented an exhibition entitled Le Jardin, Miroir du Monde: The Garden, Mirror of the World, in English. The event was a dedication to the rose, the kitchen garden and autumn blooms, as well as the calendar of blooms of the botanical collections preserved by the Domaine du Rivau.

Gavin Turk presented Odyssey, a bronze trompe l’oeil of a lotus seed stem, painted in green and brown. Mimicking the appearance of the Lotus, a symbol of spirituality, the piece explores the journey of this plant that has become an emblem of purity over time. As with much of his work, the apparently-straight-forward appearance of the piece speaks to notions of value and authenticity in art and wider society.

The exhibition consisted of six chapters: le motif floral, le thème des oiseaux, Naturalia, le jardin intérieur, les femmes et le jardin ainsi que la préservation de la nature.

Le motif floral was presented in the first room of the château with works by Hugo Alonso, Julien Audebert, Mat Collishaw, Lionel Estève, Joan Fontcuberta, Robert Mapplethorpe, Satoshi Saikusa and Alain Sechas.

Le cabinet aux oiseaux displayed pieces by Bertrand Gadenne, Ernesto Nieto, Raphaelle Perria, Leopold Rabus and Jean-Luc Verna.

Naturalia featuring Gavin Turk’s Odyssey, was showcased in the Salle du Grand Logis with works by SUN Xue, Anna-Iris Lüneman, Julie Legrand and Renate Rabus.

Le jardin intérieur included works by Pierre Ardouvin, Thomas Houseago, Lamarche-Ovize, Paul Mignard and RU XIAO FAN.

Les femmes et le jardin showcased work by Katia Bourdarel Petra Coutright, Elodie Antoine, and Marie Denis among others.

In the gardens,&nbsp;Demain sera vert? featured ORLAN, DAESUNG LEE, Bianca Biondi and Markus Åkesson.

Balancing Blue Biscuit, 2018 

As part of Nouvelles Renaissances 2022, the theme of the festival adopted by all the Monuments and Gardens of the Loire Valley, Château du Rivau presented an exhibition entitled Le Jardin, Miroir du Monde: The Garden, Mirror of the World, in English. The event was a dedication to the rose, the kitchen garden and autumn blooms, as well as the calendar of blooms of the botanical collections preserved by the Domaine du Rivau.

Le Jardin, Miroir du Monde

SUBRADAR featured the artists Gavin Turk, Andrew Grassie, Neil Gall, Susan Collis and Jim Cheatle each exploring decelption and illusion in their own singular ways. The artworks on display question the status of the real and how the surrounding environment affects how art is made an d perceived. Inspired by the banality of the overlooked, the sculptural objects are recreated and transfigured, mischievously and poetically, drawing attention to yet another way of looking at the world.&nbsp;

Curated by Jim Cheatle&nbsp;

SUBRADAR featured the artists Gavin Turk, Andrew Grassie, Neil Gall, Susan Collis and Jim Cheatle each exploring decelption and illusion in their own singular ways. The artworks on display question the status of the real and how the surrounding environment affects how art is made an d perceived. Inspired by the banality of the overlooked, the sculptural objects are recreated and transfigured, mischievously and poetically, drawing attention to yet another way of looking at the world.  Curated by Jim Cheatle 

SUBRADAR: The Deceptive Image in the Screen Environment

Mind, Art, Experience: 10 Years of Chess &amp; Culture in Saint Louis&nbsp;was a celebration of the best chess, art and culture from all 50 exhibitions held at the World Chess Hall of Fame since its 2011 relocation to Saint Louis, Missouri. 

Gavin Turk’s Mechanical Turk, a 14-minute film installation, was displayed alongside the cabinet and knight chest piece that feature in the film. for the piece,&nbsp;Turk disguised himself as a life-sized 18th Century chess-playing automaton, The Mechanical Turk, whose technical wizardry was said to have outwitted even Napoleon, as this elaborate hoax toured around the most illustrious courts of Europe. The film shows Turk replaying the Knight’s Tour, a clever yet pointless circular ritual which takes the Knight across every square on the board in a mechanical mimicry of the “original” “fake”.

The three-floor show featured more than 120 other artworks and artifacts, including pieces related to legendary World Champions Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov, and Boris Spassky.&nbsp;Also on display were works by renowned photojournalist Harry Benson CBE and internationally-acclaimed artists M.C. Escher, Tom Friedman, Barbara Kruger and Yoko Ono; chess-inspired pieces by Saint Louis-based creatives Michael Drummond, Peter Manion and Audra Danielle Noyes; and loans from notable collectors and institutions, including Jon Crumiller, Dr. George and Vivian Dean, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Luhring Augustine Gallery and David Zwirner Gallery.

Mind, Art, Experience

Mind, Art, Experience: 10 Years of Chess & Culture in Saint Louis was a celebration of the best chess, art and culture from all 50 exhibitions held at the World Chess Hall of Fame since its 2011 relocation to Saint Louis, Missouri.