Gavin Turk
My art is always other people's art… But I'd also say that the inevitability of contemporary art is that it's always a self-portrait as well.’
Gavin Turk (1967, United Kingdom) creates sculptures and installations that question what defines art and who can be considered an artist. As part of the Young British Artists, a group that challenged traditional ideas in the 1990s, he developed a bold and critical approach early in his career. His works often present familiar objects such as trash bags, bronze casts, or lifelike figures, but shift their meaning by placing them in new contexts. Turk frequently uses his own image, adopting the appearance of figures like Sid Vicious or Che Guevara to explore identity and authorship.
His practice focuses on how meaning is constructed in art. Influenced by artists such as Marcel Duchamp, he reuses existing images and objects to examine themes of fame, originality, and perception. By transforming ordinary materials into artworks, he shows how context shapes what we see and how we assign value, encouraging viewers to question assumptions about identity and meaning in both art and everyday life.
