Illustrious names past and present were in attendance at last night’s (25 November) pre-preview dinner of Gavin Turk’s exhibition, Wittgenstein’s Dream (until 7 February 2016), at the Freud Museum in Hampstead. Joseph Kosuth, Richard Long, Cornelia Parker, Tate curator Andrew Wilson and Deutsche Bank’s Alistair Hicks were among the luminaries gathered to inspect the fruits of what Turk described as his “micro-residency” in the last home of the founding father of psychoanalysis. Most notable of the artist’s interventions, was the highly-charged introduction of a life-sized waxwork of fellow Austrian—and Freud-skeptic—Ludwig Wittgenstein into the hallowed sanctum of Freud’s study. The tweed-jacketed philosopher stands just across from the iconic couch, enigmatically cradling an egg in his hand. At tonight’s private view the ante will be further upped when, in a one-off performance, this interloper is joined by a Freudian doppelganger, slumped across the great man’s desk.
Other Turk interventions include large scale photographs of billowing ectoplasmic smoke, redolent both of Dr. F’s cigar habit as well as notions of free association; three neon works spelling out the Freudian buzzwords, id, ego, and super-ego; and the introduction into an upstairs room of Turk’s own studio desk, covered with personal memorabilia in ironic homage to Freud’s antiquity-laden counterpart down below. There is even a miniature bust of Turk-as-Freud cheekily ins erted in to one of the study’s crammed vitrines. All of which was especially interesting to Turk’s friend, and conceptual art pioneer, Joseph Kosuth. The latter’s work has been deeply influenced by Wittgenstein’s theories of language, and in 1989 he even curated a special exhibition at the Vienna Secession to mark the 100th anniversary of the philosopher’s birth. Thankfully, Mr. Kosuth seemed to be of the opinion that Wittgenstein would have heartily approved of Turk’s interrogatory, but affectionate, take on his fellow philosophical great.
