Gavin Turk was going round and round in circles at yesterday’s (Sunday 16 September) Art Cycle Basket Fair, the new adjunct to the ever-popular Art Car Boot Fair. This year the fair celebrates its fifth anniversary and a move to a new London venue in Granary Square, King’s Cross. In honour of the occasion Turk, was making a special “Circle Line” action painting whilst mounted on one of his special Le Bike De Bois Rond bicycle sculptures—in addition to being customised with yellow, red and blue beads in the colours of André Cadere’s Barres de Bois Rond segmented wooden stick sculptures, it had been fitted with a special ink pad on its back wheel.
The multi-referential Circle Line painting from Turk was also his own particular homage to the now little-known British action painter William Green, who became notorious in the 1960s for riding a bicycle over a surface saturated with bitumen. Turk’s 21st-century update came with a few wobbly moments as he pedalled in ever-tighter circles, leaving a looping inky trail on a canvas on the floor. But he remained aloft and triumphantly signed the piece by squirting ink directly from the bottle and announcing an asking price of £15,000 for the unique work. For those on a more restricted budget there were some rather cheaper t-shirts and multiples also on offer. Read more