Gavin Turk

I recently stumbled upon an artist who's practice, in relation to the audience, rings true tomy current work.

Gavin Turk is a renowned practitioner who has had major exhibitions and even had his work put into the Saatchi Gallery.

What is perhaps most intriguing abouthis work is that he creates a false sense of accomplishment and persona. In his work "Cave" he simply places a plaqe in the gallery, noting that he worked thereas a sculptor between a set of dates. Immediately the audience is forced to conjure up some respect for him and assume that he had a powerful and influential career.

He furthermore goes on to make a Sid-Vicious/Elvis- esque wax work of himself in a pose reminiscent of Hollywood Stars. This workcould have come straight out of Madame Tussauds due to the positioning and caliber of the finish and as a spectator you find it all too easy to elieve this lie of his self-projected stardom. His work also flows through contemporary media, in the fact that he made a mock up of "Hello" magazine, featuring himself in a typically A-list front page story.

Indeed, when questioned, Turk claims that his materials are irrelevant as they constantly change, though it is the idea which is the driving force.

His fabrication and manipulation of the audience is something to aspire to and highly relevent to my own work as i aim to do the very same with my viewers. I like the way that his pieces are merged into the galleries themselves, to give more believability to them. Maybe i might think abot how my own work could be positioned and making an alter ego or constructing some ack story to a fictional character to really take this through. Ifi want it to work then i really want to go the whole hog!!