gavin turk
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(b.
1967 Guildford. Graduated Royal College of Art 1991. Currently lives
and works in London)Gavin Turk is an artist who continually investigates
what it means to be an artist, many of his works deal with issues of
authorship, authenticity and originality. He announced his artistic
programme in 1991 when he was denied an MA certificate from the Royal
College of Art for presenting at his degree show, an English Heritage
plaque bearing the inscription "Borough of Kensington Gavin Turk Sculptor
Worked Here 1989-1991". The rest of the studio space was completely
empty. Turk symbolically killed himself off when he had only just begun.
Having, in a sense, made himself invisible, Turk could go on to adopt
different personas. He has made his own version of works by Klein, Manzoni,
Broodthaers, Magritte and Warhol.
These works both disguise the artist and reveal his horizon of influence.
Concerned with the Omyth¹ of the artist and the Oauthorship¹ of a work,
Turk¹s engagement with this modernist, avant-garde debate stretches
back to the ready-mades of Marcel Duchamp. In the early 1990s he explored
issues of authorship and identity by making a number of works based
on his own signature that comment on the value that the artist¹s name
confers onto a work. He has also made a number of photographic and sculptural
self-portraits that often involve some degree of disguise.
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| Egg Burial Drawing which inspired the Egg £1,500 - £2,500 Commissioned by Welfare State International the Egg Coffin (below) can currently be viewed at the Roaché Court Gallery |
Links to Other Artists