Gavin Turk born in ’67,  started his career as a sculptor by flunking his MA show. In his exhibition room he set up nothing but a small blue commemorative plaque of himself saying: ’Borough of Kensington Gavin Turk, sculptor, worked here 1989-1991.’ The judges couldn’t read into it the issues of authorship he was bringing up and withheld his degree. He often uses his own image in life-size sculptures of famous people. He was born in Guildford, near London  and went to the Royal Collage of Art. However, in 1991, the tutors refused to give him the final degree because of his show, called Cave, which consisted of a whitewashed studio space, containing only a blue heritage plaque (of the kind normally found on historic buildings) commemorating his own presence as a sculptor. This bestowed some instant notoriety on Turk, whose work was collected by Charles Saatchi.

His work often involves his own image disguised as that of a more famous person. He has cast himself in a series of detailed life sized sculptures as different romantic heroes, including Sid Vicious, jean-Paul Marat,  and (despite Turk's association with the right-wing advertising mogul Charles Saatchi) the leftist revolutionary Che Guevara. Much as leading YBA Damien Hirst used symbolism whose semiotics imply an (involuntary) critique of the aesthetic standards (sheep) and financial propriety (sharks, being fleeced etc) of the mainstream art world; Pop a waxwork of Turk as Sid Vicious (in white jacket and black trousers, pointing a gun - a work which toured London, Berlin and New York as part of the 1997 Sensation Exhibition appropriated the stance of Andy Warhol’s  painting of Elvis Presley, thereby depicting Turk himself (like Presley) as (semiotically speaking) a cowboy.

Ambiguity features as much as self-obsession throughout Turk's work. What appeared to be a discarded plastic rubbish bag was in fact a bronze sculpture of one. A large industrial skip (normally yellow, battered and covered in rust) was painted an immaculate gloss black. Turk turned up at the private view of the Sensation exhibition at the solemn Royal Academy, London, dressed as a down-and-out. A set of what appeared to be classic posters of Che Guevara in a beret, revealed themselves on further scrutiny to be photos of Turk himself. Turk alleged that the management of London's (now defunct) Millennium Dome refused to display his Che Gavara (sic) sculpture, for fear of offending arms-manufacturing Dome sponsor BAe/Marconi (however a correspondent in Art Monthly magazine pointed out that work by the highly political left-wing cartoonist Ralph Steadman was being exhibited in the Dome at the same time). The critic Jonathan Jones described Turk's Che Gavara Story as "an aimless, inarticulate shambles" and as "a work of transcendent stupidity".

Sensation came at the height of the YBA hype, and felt, Turk says, “like Charles Saatchi consolidating his project. It was a bit odd, actually, because it didn’t have anything to do with the art. At that apex moment, I felt absolutely distant from it.”
Since then, Turk has been in the slipstream of the YBA superstars Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, perhaps because he has been less adept at self-promotion. One of Turk’s works was a fake cover of Hello! “The suggestion was that you achieved fame and glory through art, and you’d become a celebrity, so you were inviting people in to look at photographs of you and  your house. In a weird way this is more what people want to see – and not the thing that made you famous in the first place. So, it’s almost as if success breeds failure”.
He is quick to point out that he isn’t criticising Hirst or Emin. “They’re massive now. And they’re personalities – probably Tracey more than Damien. But Tracey’s personality and her work are synonymous. Her work is exposing her personality. My project is more distant. I make work which is about being an artist. It’s almost as if I’m not sure whether I am or not.”
His Dumb Candle sculpture – a five-inch section of broom handle carved into the shape of an extinguished candle – won the £25000 .

Charles Wollaston Award at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, earning comparisons with Magritte and Duchamp. “Everyone’s obsessed with the idea of the Emperor’s new clothes, and because there’s this sense that you’re not able to see what it is that makes it art, then people are being cheated. To start with the Emperor’s new clothes: I find it annoying that the Emperor being naked can’t actually be OK. What’s wrong with the birthday suit? And what gets pointed out is that the king is deluded. But he’s perfectly happy in his delusion. Somehow, I don’t really care. If I see something and I’m motivated intellectually, that’s what counts. In that sense, it can’t be a con. It’s got to be good.”

Art, he says, “has an uneasy relationship to money. On some levels it just doesn’t exist in the same place. I don’t ever go into the situation of making an artwork because I’m going to sell it. I make artworks because I need to feel those things existed in the world for me. That’s on a spiritual level. But if you sell the work, people kind of respect it because it has a financial value.”
This must surely be the case with Turk’s bin bag sculptures, made of bronze, but designed to look exactly like bags of rubbish, with a price tag of £30,000. (Hirst’s agent, Frank Dunphy, keeps one of these at the foot of his stairs, and proclaims them to be “genius”).
His long-standing critique of artistic authorship and institutionalisation of artwork continues with his exhibit, The Golden Thread, at the White Cube Gallery in Hoxton, where his sculptures are rubbish.
Literally. Ok, so they’re cast in bronze and cost £80,000 apiece, but they are statues of black bags of domestic refuse, aptly named Pile. In an interview with the Evening Standard, the gallery director Tim Marlow says that ’many people say contemporary art is a load of rubbish. Gavin makes work that looks like it and uses humour to turn the whole argument on its head.’ I have to agree - eighty thousand pounds is pretty funny.
Turk uses his signature as a recurrent motif through which to explore the way an artist's mark can embody aesthetic and commercial value. Epiphany (1992; Rotterdam,), consists of a convex surveillance mirror signed and dated with permanent marker; the title may have been borrowed from that of another circular painting, made in 1964, by the English pop artist Richard Hamilton. In this and other works Turk can be seen to appropriate the approach of predecessors such as Pierro Manzoni and Marcel Broodthaers, who invested their signatures with an equally authenticating value, and the Fluxus artist Robert Watts (1923–88) who made a series of Signature Pieces in the late 1960s. The complicated manner in which myths of celebrity are constructed was explored in Pop (wax-work figure in a wood, glass and brass vitrine 2.79×1.15×1.15 m, London, Saatchi, a life-size self portrait in which he adopts the identity of Sid Vicious singing ‘My Way' (a song made famous by Frank Sinatra) in the pose of Elvis Presley as depicted by Andy Warhol. Turk continued this role-playing approach in The Death of Marat (1998; USA), a restaging of the Neo-classical masterpiece, The Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David. By mimicking the kind of waxwork format in which such a scene would be popularly presented, Turk merges the boundaries of two distinct personality cults—his own and that of the murdered revolutionary—suggesting the elements of myth-making common to both.

There's politics around it, but in terms of being politically accountable, it's difficult to know where to place it. And that's probably how I feel personally. I feel quite politically motivated and politically involved, but I'm not very Party Political. Trying to be involved in cultural change, or to communicate through an art platform, certainly has a political element to it - whether you choose to take that on board as an artist or not.

There has always been a political undercurrent within how art is seen, used and manipulated in order to visualize or fix society. I've always felt that somehow I wanted to put an awareness of that into the work.

But I use revolutions in my work because they are about how a culture is defined. The revolution is a counter-cultural moment at which an existing culture is defined and overthrown. Defined by the Other, by what it's not doing, or by how people would rather things were done. Revolutionary characters serve to define the Other.

Unlike the majority of contemporary British artists, Turk really does have real ideas that play with definitions of art and sculpture. His lifelike bags of rubbish cast in bronze, for example, called Tip and Dump, explore concepts of space, form, materials, social meaning, classicism, Brutishness and busts open preconceptions of what is "proper" art. This is work that you really have to experience and get close to even giving it a cheeky touch when no one is looking.

Young British Artists or YBAs  also Brit artists and Britart  a group of conceptual artists, painters, sculptors and installation artists derived from the Sensation Saatchi Gallery Exhibition.

Top 10 tips for investing in Art

When attending an auction house for the first time go to observe ONLY, without buying first - it's a good way of getting used to the atmosphere of the sale.

· Look out for the condition of the art piece - make sure, as far as possible, that paint isn't flaking, colours haven't faded and that, to the naked eye at least, it is in good order.

· Turn the painting over for any clues to dates signatures or markings to find out where it has come from, if you cannot tell from the front.

· Check for the artist's signature, can it be authenticated?

· With paintings, try to keep the original frame. Where this isn't possible, try to get hold of a period frame. Even the very best modern reproduction could lower the value of the painting. You can repair a damaged frame with silicone and plaster available at craft and art shops online.

· Ensure painting is kept out of direct sunlight, or is properly protected in storage.

· Read up on the artist in Artists who dictionary available at your local Library or online search that name.
· Make a note in the Auction catalogue out how much other works have reached in this sale and recent sales to gauge how much you should be prepared to pay

· Don't just buy because you think the value will go up - there's every chance it won't unless you have heard of the Artist and have knowledge about the artist--Age!!

· Do trust your own taste. Buy a piece of art because you love it. Then if you do decide to sell, the chances are someone else will fall for its charms and give you the price you want. Important Don’t forget to include it in your home insurance, be wise not sorry!

Gavin Turk Double Che painting on rolled canvas painted with artists acrylic paint. Hand painted copy.

30" x 40" canvas

R.R.P. £179.99

SALE Price £97

Gavin Turk Elvis Camo Grey_Blue Painting on rolled canvas painted with artists acrylic paint. Hand painted copy.

30" x 40" canvas

R.R.P. £179.99

SALE Price £97

Bestofbritart.com ©

50% Off Art SALE!

We Ship Worldwide