Gavin Turk: Who What When Where How & Why

A really good exhibition this, at Newport Street Gallery. I find it really odd that this is the first large scale survey in this country of Gavin Turk's work. Said work seems to be about illusion, identity, appropriation and ownership. Turk obviously knows his art history, and seems to enjoy playing fast and loose with the work of other artists, making many sly and funny references, but also creating something new by usurping their work and stamping his own identity - be it his portrait or signature - all over it.

Cave, (1991) above, the notorious blue plaque which cost Turk his Royal College Of Art Masters degree.

These photographs of Turk in the guise of Jackson Pollock, and the Pollock-like paintings (which are actually Turks' abstracted signature repeated), were very clever. I loved the giant cubes which referenced the work of Robert Morris and were also like the cubes of Ai Wei Wei which I saw in Cambridge last month (here). The distressed mirrored surfaces and their reflections were so beautiful.

This upstairs room very obviously references the work of Warhol and had great visual impact.

The carefully staged crashes of Transit Disaster using Turk's actual car and van are based on Warhol's Death and Disaster series. The cube above is the actual transit van crushed and compressed as a sculptural work in itself.

I liked the layers of meaning in these self-portraits of Turk posing as Sid Vicious, referencing Warhol's double and triple portraits of Elvis posing as a cowboy in a film still.

This figure above was odd. A disturbing end-of-pier style dummy who becomes animated once a sensor was triggered.

This figure was really affecting. I really felt for Turk as a down and out substance abuser, compared to the swagger of Turk as the figure of Sid Vicious, above. Shades of Duane Hanson.

I found these trompe l'oeil 'readymades' intriguing and extraordinary in their mundane ordinariness.They really do fool the eye and you can't help but want to touch and examine them to feel their weight compared to the real things as they are all bronze. I thought they were fantastic.

These bronze sleeping bags referencing the homeless were really emotive, especially at the this time of year given the weather conditions, and most of us able to enjoy the warmth of our homes and comfort of family in the run up to Christmas. With next years forecasted economic hardships on the horizon one can't help but think - there but for the grace of God...

I will definately be paying this exhibition another visit.

Gavin Turk: Who What When Where How & Why
until 19th March 2017
Newport Street Gallery
London
SE11

Mixed Christmas Show: Cambridge Contemporary Art

Gloriole

I was delighted once again to have been invited to show a couple of new pieces in Cambridge Contemporary Art's Mixed Christmas Show, including a new series of works entitled Gloriole, (the piece above being one from the series). It is a gold-leaf piece and comes in a 50cm x 50cm ash box frame. There will be more on this series in a future post. The show opens today. To make enquiries about this piece or others of mine at the gallery, contact Cambridge Contemporary Art (details below), or myself directly, (josephscissorhands@yahoo.co.uk or 07930 209587).

The gallery would also like to invite you to celebrate the festive season, and join them for drinks whilst viewing the Christmas Show on Wednesday 7th December between 5-8pm. Last year was great fun with carol singers and flash-mob dancers, so again contact the gallery for further details if you would like to attend.


Mixed Christmas Show
until 24th December 2016
Cambridge Contemporary Art
6 Trinity Street 
Cambridge
01223 324222
http://www.cambridgegallery.co.uk/contact/

A Josef Frank-Inspired Commission: Outcome

So I was recently commissioned by a cllient of the Rowley Gallery to create a 1m squared Butterfly Ball which took as its inspiration the colours from this fabulous Josef Frank fabric entitled - Citrus Garden. I was also asked to include butterflies from maps of areas that held special memories to the recipient. The following are pictures of the finished artwork which I was really happy with. Can't wait for the Josef Frank exhibition early next year.

If you would like to commission something similar then contact me directly, or via the galleries that show my work here.

Eileen Agar: Butterflies Through Other Eyes #24

Eileen Agar: Butterfly Bush (1971)

Another butterfly inspired gem from Ms Agar.

Eileen Agar: Butterflies Through Other Eyes #23

Eileen Agar: Butterfly Bride 1938

Antony Gormley: Fit

Over to Bermondsey to catch Antony Gormley: Fit at White Cube.

The show is a really enjoyable mix of figurative and architectural sculptures. The architecturally inspired pieces were huge and completed in an interesting variety of media. They interact with, and impose on the spaces they occupy so well. The surface textures of certain works were intriguing - from the streaky rust of the large iron pieces, to the gnarled knots of wood captured and sealed forever into large concrete slabs. They were very reminiscent of the Brutalist concrete architecture of the Southbank centre.

The figure is of course central to Gormley's practice, and it was represented in a variety of ways. Reduced to it's most fragile, skeletal and very vulnerable in some pieces, and then in others complex, solid, structural blocks. I was glad to see one of his older, more naturalistic lead figures in amongst the newer geometric block figures.

Sleeping Field (2015-2016), above, was another vast installation of various cubistic figures in a variety of poses riffing on his earlier terracotta Field (1991). It consists of 500 iron figures in various languid poses representing refugees and the sense of belonging. Passage (2016), below, was the most intriguing of the figurative pieces though. It is a 12m long human-shaped steel tunnel which the viewer walks into. It encloses you like a cocoon the further you walk into it, and at the deepest end you are enclosed in a void of near blackness. It is slightly disorientating - like going into a sensory deprivation tank - but strangely comforting as well. The light effects experienced as you return to the entrance of the installation and emerge once again into the light of the gallery are fantastic (bottom).

Antony Gormley: Fit
until 6th November
White Cube Bermondsey
144-152 Bermondsey Street
London
SE1