Gavin Turk

Born 1967 in Guildford, UK

Lives and works in London, UK

Gavin Turk is a British born, international artist. He has pioneered many forms of contemporary British sculpture now taken for granted, including painted bronze, waxwork, recycled art-historical icons and the use of rubbish in art. Turk’s installations and sculptures deal with issues of authorship, authenticity and identity. 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 1991, the Royal College of Art refused Turk a degree on the basis that his final show, ‘Cave’, consisted of a whitewashed studio space containing only a blue heritage plaque commemorating his presence ‘Gavin Turk worked here 1989-91′. Instantly gaining notoriety through this installation, Turk was spotted by Charles Saatchi and was included in several YBA exhibitions. Turk’s work has since been collected and exhibited by many major museums and galleries throughout the world.  

He had substantial institutional solo shows at Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna, Austria (2018), Sigmund Freud Museum, Vienna, Austria, CCA Andratx, Mallorca, Spain, (2015), New Art Centre, Roche Court, Salisbury, UK, The Bowes Museum, County Durham, UK, Foundation Frances, France (2014), Ecole Supérieure dArts Plastique de la Ville de Monaco, The Gervasuti Foundation at the 55th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2013) and others. Gavin Turk participated in numerous group shows, such as the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels, Belgium (2022), the Pera Museum, Istanbul, Turkey, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow MOCAK, Poland, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2017) and others.