Gavin Turk

Description

The Golden Thread is a large-scale installation that explores notions of perception and suspension, image and reality - a glass and metal vision of the Minotaur's lair from Greek mythology. In the Ancient Greek story the heroic Thesius, aided and abetted by Ariadne's ingenuity, finds his way to the centre of the labyrinth to slay the ferocious and blood thirsty bull headed Minotaur. Turk however creates a post-modern version of the myth. A modular fascination laid out in simple geometry and arithmetic, echoing the social control of reality TV, where the prisoners are under observation, not hidden away in a dungeon.

The labyrinthine structure spanning the floor is made from framed glass panels laid out on a grid like a giant chessboard. It consists of a maze of mirrors, each one designed to disorientate and confuse, luring you in through the opening to consume the sculpture, to find the art within. The piece is very much to with the performance of looking at art, or looking for it.

The work is an interactive spectacle, relying for effect on the silence, expressions of surprise or shock, the thud of someone bumping into a wall, and the chatter of voices of those filing through its narrow corridors. The uncomfortable faces of strangers staring back at you adhere to bemused museum exhibits looking at each other. It is all one great mass of activity.