RE:DEFINE – GAVIN TURK
Gold Triple Pop Silkscreen on Paper
Gavin Turk continually investigates what it means to be an artist and many of his works deal with issues of authorship, authenticity and originality.
Turk has made his own version of works by Yves Klein, Piero Manzoni, Marcel Broodthaers, Rene Magritte and Andy Warhol in works that both disguise the ‘real’ artist as well as reveal his horizon of influence. Concerned with the ‘myth’ of the artist and the ‘authorship’ of a work, Turk’s engagement with this modernist, avant-garde debate stretches back to the ready-mades of Marcel Duchamp. In the early 1990s, Turk made a number of works based on his own signature that comment on the value that the artist’s name can confer onto a work. He has also made a number of photographic and sculptural self-portraits that often involve some degree of disguise such as his best-known sculpture ‘Pop’ (1993), a waxwork of Gavin Turk as Sid Vicious in the stance of Warhol’s Elvis Presley or ‘Che’ (1999) where he posed as the dead revolutionary Che Guevara. More recently, Turk has taken inspiration from the street, making sculptures of ordinary, everyday objects such as bin bags, sleeping bags or polystyrene coffee cups in bronze that is then painted to appear hyper-real. The works are wry and ironic, again underlining the way that an artist can transform an object’s value, and confer a canonical status to something that is literally ‘rubbish’ and usually overlooked.
Turk has also made large-scale installations, such as his work ‘The Golden Thread’ (2004), which was a huge mirrored labyrinth, referring obliquely to the anonymous architecture of corporations and retail outlets. The work is essentially ‘empty’, providing not an object for contemplation but a journey or tunnel for the viewer to be constantly presented with nothing but their own reflection.
Gavin Turk’s art will be exhibited at the Goss-Michael Foundation from Sept. 16 – 23 for the MTV RE:DEFINE event. His work along with 29 other works of international artist – including Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, D*Face, Polly Morgan– will be auctioned off at a VIP reception on Saturday, Sept. 24. One hundred percent of the proceeds will benefit the Staying Alive Foundation which encourages, energizes and empowers young people who are involved in HIV and AIDS awareness, education and prevention campaigns. For those unable to attend the event, absentee bids will also be accepted including via telephone – please visit www.mtvredefine.com for more information on how to bid.
