Sir John Soane’s Museum has announced a major new exhibition by Gavin Turk, which will see the celebrated British artist transform one of London’s most extraordinary historic houses through a series of new commissions and interventions.
Opening on 14th July 2027, the exhibition will place Turk’s distinctive practice in dialogue with Sir John Soane’s remarkable collection, using sculpture, found objects and works inspired by the Museum’s rarely seen Building Archive to explore ideas of collecting, memory and value.
Best known for elevating discarded and everyday objects into meticulously crafted sculptures, Turk has spent more than three decades questioning authenticity, authorship and the way value is assigned to art. At Sir John Soane’s Museum, that fascination finds a natural setting, where the artist responds not only to the collection but also to the overlooked traces left behind by generations of people who have lived and worked within the building.
Central to the exhibition is the Museum’s Building Archive, an extraordinary collection preserving fragments of everyday life dating from 1837 to the present. Among its contents are a George III halfpenny discovered in the Strong Closet, a quill thought to have been dropped by one of Soane’s students and buttons passed between generations of Head Porters—small objects that reveal the hidden history of the Museum itself.
Responding directly to these stories, Turk will create new works that appear throughout the house, including sculptures of teazels and a crow, discreetly positioned among Sir John Soane’s permanent collection so that they appear almost as though they have always belonged there.
The exhibition’s centrepiece will occupy the Museum’s Foyle Space, where Turk’s monumental installation Looking Glass takes the form of a large dichroic glass cube filled with debris from his own studio. By reframing waste as something precious, the work echoes Sir John Soane’s own curious time capsule, hidden in his bathtub and containing objects including false teeth, broken glass and old receipts.
Upstairs, objects selected from the Building Archive will be displayed in an exhibition co-curated by Turk and Helen Dorey, Deputy Director and Inspectress of Sir John Soane’s Museum. Together, contemporary artworks and historical artefacts will invite visitors to think about collecting not simply as preservation, but as an ongoing act of storytelling.
Speaking about the project, Turk said:
“The building archive has introduced me to important piles of dust, which brings me to contemplate the metaphysical nature of dust. Dust is a metaphor for time itself. I see this as an opportunity to reveal and reframe the museum’s hidden narratives, through the act of care and curation.”
Bringing one of Britain’s most influential contemporary artists into conversation with one of London’s most atmospheric museums, the exhibition promises to uncover unexpected connections between the overlooked objects of everyday life and the stories they continue to carry.
Gavin Turk, 14th July 2027 – 16th January 2028
Sir John Soane’s Museum
About the artist
Gavin Turk (b. 1967, Guildford, Surrey) is a conceptual artist whose work interrogates ideas of authenticity, authorship and the ‘myth’ of the artist. Drawing on Surrealist methodologies, his practice is self-reflexive and often knowingly parodic, questioning the art world’s value systems and the construction of the artist’s persona. Turk came to prominence with his postgraduate degree show at the Royal College of Art where he presented Cave (1991): an empty, whitewashed room bearing a blue heritage plaque inscribed with his own name. The installation announced a sceptical, postmodern view of artistic status and reputation, establishing the use of his name as a recurring device within his practice. It brought Turk immediate notoriety following the attention of Charles Saatchi and led to his association with the generation of Young British Artists (YBAs). Since then, Turk has developed a wide-ranging body of work that examines the cultural and economic frameworks surrounding art and its makers. He frequently reconfigures the visual languages of artists who precede him, using art history as material through which questions of originality, influence and inheritance are explored. Working across sculpture, painting, photography, and print, Turk has pioneered approaches now familiar within British contemporary art, including painted bronze, waxwork, art-historical appropriation, and the use of discarded materials.
Turk studied at the Chelsea School of Art (1986 -1989) and the Royal College of Art (1989-1991), both in London. Turk’s work is held in numerous public collections worldwide, including the Tate, London; Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, NY; Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK), Frankfurt; Saatchi Gallery, London; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA), CA; Musée Magritte, Brussels; British Council, London; and the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), London. More here www.gavinturk.com
