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  • 'Transit Disasters' is a collection of 10 silkscreen prints on Somerset paper, available as a limited edition of 30. (Editions...

    'Transit Disasters' is a collection of 10 silkscreen prints on Somerset paper, available as a limited edition of 30. (Editions 1-15 available only as portfolio's. Editions 16-30 available individually)

  • Just as Warhol’s car crash paintings from his ‘Death and Disaster’ series (1962 – 1963) anesthetized violence through multiple reproductions...

    Just as Warhol’s car crash paintings from his ‘Death and Disaster’ series (1962 – 1963) anesthetized violence through multiple reproductions in bright, saturated colours, so too do Turk’s ‘Transit Disaster’ series become abstractions of abstractions, transforming horror into beauty and death into something striking and alluring, as the deformed metal of the crashes becomes textures, patterns and shapes. However, the series is more than simply a contemporary re-cycling of Warhol’s paintings, by replacing the American car with an image of a transit van, a symbol of a certain burnt-out, both literally and symbolically, working class Britain, Turk incorporates ideas of social decline into Warhol’s glamorous oeuvre.

     

  • Gavin Turk, Diamond Transit Disasters set: Red, White, Blue, 2018 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Gavin Turk, Diamond Transit Disaster Red, 2018 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Gavin Turk, Diamond Transit Disaster White, 2018 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).

    Gavin Turk, Diamond Transit Disasters set: Red, White, Blue. 2018

  • Presenting initially as ‘abstracts’ rendered in a restrained palette of secondary colours, the works in the portfolio are revealed as...

    Presenting initially as ‘abstracts’ rendered in a restrained palette of secondary colours, the works in the portfolio are revealed as a series of repeated photographic images of crashed white transit vans – a recurring theme for Turk since 2010.   White Van Man has become part of contemporary folklore: a white male in a battered Ford Transit who delivers goods and services in a post high street Britain where global logistics have become intertwined with his paranoid fear of being taken advantage of by bureaucrats and by migrating foreigners.  Originally manufactured on the first factory production line by Ford in the USA, the Transit van, with its signature style logo badge, is a mass-produced branded product adopted by the UK as its own. Offering a host of cultural references for the viewer, a link can be made with Warhol’s ‘factory’, the studio scene that pumped out authentic reproductions of celebrity and consumer culture. Warhol’s art, created using yesterday's news and popular culture, has now become the industry standard for ‘safe’ modern art investments.

  •  

  • This portfolio of images also reminds us of Grand Theft Auto; the violent but pioneering computer game of British design. GTA pays homage to an American Dream gone very wrong - cars once seen as a symbol of freedom and democracy digitally transformed into the destructive rebel’s weapon of choice.
    The phenomenon of consumer culture gone mad is a theme playfully referenced in Turk’s oeuvre, from the signature painted bronze bin bag sculptures and cardboard boxes to these repeated images of a Transit van, deconstructed and crushed. 

    From crash to burn out, the demise of a once proud working class is encapsulated in the violent death of an anachronistic world played out in this 'White Van Man' series - a plaintive statement and memorial for a transforming Britain no longer confident of its own identity, delivered within the aesthetic of American Pop. It perhaps asks the question, "is the loss of our green and pleasant land an accidental act of self-harm?"

    • Gavin Turk Transit Disaster Motorway, 2018 Silkscreen on 410gsm Somerset Tub sized satin. Editions 1-15 available only as portfolio's. Editions 16-30 available individually 76.5 x 102 cm Edition of 30 Signed, titled, dated and numbered
      Gavin Turk
      Transit Disaster Motorway, 2018
      Silkscreen on 410gsm Somerset Tub sized satin. Editions 1-15 available only as portfolio's. Editions 16-30 available individually
      76.5 x 102 cm
      Edition of 30
      Signed, titled, dated and numbered
      £ 1,680.00
    • Gavin Turk Transit v Cobra Disaster, 2018 Silkscreen on 410gsm Somerset Tub sized satin. Editions 1-15 available only as portfolio's. Editions 16-30 available individually 76.5 x 102 cm Edition of 30 Signed, titled, dated and numbered
      Gavin Turk
      Transit v Cobra Disaster, 2018
      Silkscreen on 410gsm Somerset Tub sized satin. Editions 1-15 available only as portfolio's. Editions 16-30 available individually
      76.5 x 102 cm
      Edition of 30
      Signed, titled, dated and numbered
      £ 1,680.00 inc vat
    • Gavin Turk Transit Disaster Arcade, 2018 Silkscreen on 410gsm Somerset Tub sized satin. Editions 1-15 available only as portfolio's. Editions 16-30 available individually 76.5 x 102 cm Edition of 30 Signed, titled, dated and numbered
      Gavin Turk
      Transit Disaster Arcade, 2018
      Silkscreen on 410gsm Somerset Tub sized satin. Editions 1-15 available only as portfolio's. Editions 16-30 available individually
      76.5 x 102 cm
      Edition of 30
      Signed, titled, dated and numbered
      £ 1,680.00 inc vat
    • Gavin Turk Transit Disaster Carcass, 2018 Silkscreen on 410gsm Somerset Tub sized satin. Editions 1-15 available only as portfolio's. Editions 16-30 available individually 76.5 x 102 cm Edition of 30 Signed, titled, dated and numbered
      Gavin Turk
      Transit Disaster Carcass, 2018
      Silkscreen on 410gsm Somerset Tub sized satin. Editions 1-15 available only as portfolio's. Editions 16-30 available individually
      76.5 x 102 cm
      Edition of 30
      Signed, titled, dated and numbered
      £ 1,680.00 inc vat
  • Installation Gavin Turk 'White Van Man', 2018
  • Gavin Turk

    Diamond Transit Disaster, 2018 Silkscreen and diamond dust on 410gsm Somerset Tub sized satin. Editions 1-15 available only as portfolio's. Editions 16-30 available individually
    76.5 x 102 cm
    Edition of 30
  • For further information please contact [email protected]

Paul Stolper

31 Museum Street

London

WC1A 1LH

 

Contact

[email protected]                                       Please note prices are subject to change without notice

 

 

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