To End With A Beginning

“To
End With A Beginning” was a PaR investigation into the work of international
artist Gavin Turk in the form of a reflexive response to its core themes and
approaches. Critically informed by Baudrillard’s theory of Endgame Capitalism (adapted from the final
stage of a chess game when the end becomes a foregone conclusion) alongside
concepts relating to modernism, minimalism, postmodernism, pop art and punk,
the enquiry aimed to establish how Turk’s work is a comment on the function of
art within late consumer capitalism. Reflecting Turk’s interest in Derrida’s theory
of deconstruction, the enquiry aimed to investigate
how Turk’s art could be explored in the form of a meta-text in two ways.
Firstly, as a critical “frame”. Secondly, as a creative response through experimentation
with form, structure, language and tone, expanding on and extending Turk’s own
playful approach. This enquiry was conducted through formal interview and
informal conversations, studio and exhibition visits, researching Turk’s
archive of exhibition catalogues and the process of creative writing itself. The
resulting meta-text mirrored Turk’s conceptual puzzling in the form of a reflexive
narrative puzzle that sought to ask more questions than it answered. Thus, “To
End With A Beginning” both elucidates
and further problematises Turk’s art in
order to shed light on the essential paradoxes at the heart of his work and the
themes it addresses. It proposed that Turk’s work can be understood as a form
of Endgame Art that evidences a breakdown in meaning while offering uncertainty
as a possible approach towards its restoration. Sitting within a constellation
of meta-texts consisting of further creative responses to Turk, the output was
disseminated through a series of conversations between myself and the artists at
Port Eliot Literary Festival, Festival Number 6, The Holburne Museum, Bath and
London Metropolitan University CASS Arts.