It's in the Bag (2001)

Though much of Turk's musing takes place among the hallowed halls of the art gallery and museum, he has not overlooked the ordinary stuff of life - in particular the everyday materials and images of the urban street scene. In 1996 he submitted a huge, oversized black skip to the 'Material Culture' show at the Hayward Gallery in London; for the Royal Academy's opening of 'Sensation', he arrived in disguise as a dishevelled tramp; and most famously he made a blue heritage plaque as the only work for his MA show in 1991 which read: 'Borough of Kensington, GAVIN TURK, Sculptor, worked here 1989-1991'. For Counter Editions, Turk has created a wistful lithograph of that most ubiquitous of objects - the black plastic bin bag. In choosing such a throwaway subject Turk could be seen to be making an irreverent gesture towards the medium of lithography and its conservative traditions. Yet in the soft colouring and subtle washes of ink, he shows a kind of sweet, humorous respect for this humble, everyday form.