Valeska Soares, Duet, 2008 Marble.
Gavin Turk, Habitat, 2004. Painted bronze.
I particularly remember seeing one of Gavin Turk's series of sleeping bags at the bottom of a staircase at a gallery (Wallace Collection or perhaps the Royal Academy) and marvelling at its realism. The two sculptures stir completely different reactions, despite both alluding to sleep - it is hard to look at the pieces side by side without considering the disparity between the imagined sleepers.
I wonder which work would be more popular in a poll of gallery visitors? I am inclined to think Valeska Soares' pillows because they are easier to look at compared to Turk's evocation of a cold vulnerable night. Turk's work makes me thankful that, like the majority of gallery visitors, I am lucky enough to be more familiar with a crumpled pillow with a high thread count than a threadbare sleeping bag gleaming with grime.
While working in the White Cube archives I came across a book which had invited writers to provide an accompaniment to the work, this was poet Vive Griffith's response to 'Duet':
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