Gavin Turk is truly the most mutable of artists, the Alec Guinness—or for those with longer memories—the Lon Chaney of the art world: capable of morphing into multiple iconic identities: Che Guevara, Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol, Jean-Paul Marat and Sid Vicious, to name but a few.
Now the many modes of Turk have entered a new hirsute incarnation with Project Beard in which the artist’s magnificent facial growth (which he has been nurturing for the past three years) has been meticulously trimmed, sculpted and shorn in order for him to assume the astonishingly convincing personae of six bewhiskered art historical titans: Paul Cézanne, Auguste Rodin, William Morris, Matisse, Man Ray (in his famously demi-shaved state) and, of course, Salvador Dalí.
These images will be unveiled and for sale next week at The Other Art Fair (23-26 April) in six special limited editions to raise money for The House of Fairytales educational charity. But here is a sneak preview especially for The Art Newspaper readers, plus a shot of the shearing work in progress (above).
