The Georgia Museum of Art is welcoming visitors in a new way these days, thanks to a recent addition to the lobby walls. A new long-term installation, fittingly named “Welcome,” is not the typical welcome sign that’s often found in a lobby. Created by artist Gregor Turk, the work uses 77 recycled security cameras to spell out the titular word in a space that stretches nearly 30 feet from floor to ceiling. The installation is hard to miss and may make you feel like you’re being watched as you ascend the steps to our galleries. And that’s kind of the point.
The installation has been in the works for years and is a welcomed addition to the museum entryway and lobby. The project began when former museum director William Underwood Eiland approached Turk about the project in March 2020, just before the pandemic put most things to a full halt. Familiar with the artist’s work, he gave Turk creative freedom to create a work for the museum lobby that would make an impression on visitors. The concept for “Welcome” had previously been pitched to a number of public spaces – an airport, a rapid transit station in Atlanta and a new security facility at the Georgia Institute of Technology – but none were quite the right fit. The Georgia Museum of Art, the artist noted, was a natural fit for the piece.
“I think it takes the right perspective,” said Turk. “The museum seemed like the perfect place because you’ve got an audience that gets that it is oxymoronic, tongue-in-cheek,” he said.
“The audience is everything,” he added.
An Atlanta native, Turk has been a working artist for more than two decades, with installations and pieces on view across the state and beyond. Utilizing a wide range of mediums including ceramics, photography and mixed media, he strives to create connections between the viewer, the piece and surrounding environment in his art. Ultimately, his core artistic passion is public art. As he told ARTSATL.org in a 2021 piece:
“I’m a landscape kind of guy,” says visual artist Gregor Turk. “The great thing about public art? It becomes something else.”
It won’t take long to see what he’s talking about.
Both personable and humble, Turk is an artistic Renaissance man. From photography and design to ceramics, rubber and rubbings, he’s fascinated with geography, maps and signs, and tends to find distinctive ways to represent the kind of history that often gets bulldozed.
If you’re unfamiliar with his work, there’s a lot to take in and admire. Most recently, he’s been in the limelight with a series of projects to help preserve the historically Black Atlanta neighborhood known as Blandtown. When development threatened to all but erase the fabric of the once-vibrant neighborhood, an attempt to rename it West Town was the final straw for Turk. Since 2003, the neighborhood has been home to his studio at one of only a handful of original homes still standing in the area, as of a few years ago, so watching the effects of rapid development really hit close to home. As Atlanta Magazine detailed in 2018, his studio [just 15 years later] had become surrounded by 35 new single-family homes, many priced at more than half a million dollars, and hipster venues like a BYOB ax-throwing venue and coffee shop were swiftly invading the area in every direction. The history of the neighborhood is largely based in folklore and is still a source of inquiry by history experts. Thanks to Turk and other advocates, however, some details have been confirmed. As he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a 2021 article:
“The history’s been lost,” Turk said. “What I’m trying to do is reclaim that history and create that curiosity.”
Blandtown was founded by and named after Felix Bland, a former slave whose parents purchased four acres in the area in the 1870s. It grew into a vibrant community, one of the first African American neighborhoods in Atlanta after the Civil War.
At one point, Blandtown had over 200 houses, and was home to a broadcasting tower for WERD, the first Black-owned radio station in the country.
With the attempt to rename the area, Turk decided to take action. In what was just the first of a series of art projects to help Blandtown hold on to its identity, he erected a billboard in his yard in 2016 that read “Welcome to the Heart of Blandtown.” The sign was “not a passive-aggressive middle finger at developers” but rather “a history lesson,” he told Atlanta Magazine. A litany of art projects to raise awareness followed and today Blandtown neighborhood associations have embraced the history of the neighborhood, founded by Felix Bland and his mother Finey, and all but abandoned developer attempts to rebrand it.
Turk’s commitment to use art as commentary and a means to spark conversation and change is apparent in his new installation in the museum lobby. “Welcome” showcases his ability to use art to engage with viewers and elicit playful yet poignant contemplation. The choice of security cameras in “Welcome” underlines the tacit acknowledgment that coming to a museum means agreeing to a level of scrutiny. In today’s technology-driven world, that scrutiny is more prevalent than ever.
“Really, it’s more about how we have a desire for a sense of security,” Turk said, “but what does that [security] come with?”
The recycled cameras were secured from a number of different security and recycling organizations, including Midtown Blue and Athens’ own Center for Hard to Recycle Materials(opens in new tab). Turk wanted to include a wide array of cameras to depict all of the different settings we experience surveillance. There are smaller, more familiar devices in the letter M that evoke a sense of home security, and more intimidating dome and bullet cameras elicit an almost intimidating feeling. He drew the line at one potential camera for the piece. An enormous dome camera from the Atlanta Zoo that was used to keep an eye on the pandas was just too much for the piece. “I hated to say no!” he chuckled.
The artist is still percolating new ideas about how “Welcome” might evolve and change in the future, including an interactive component with working cameras and monitors so viewers can see exactly how the installation is looking back at them. For now, though, he’s pleased to have the piece installed in a place that’s suited for this particular brand of commentary. “The main thing [about the piece at this point] was just to put a smile on people’s face and give them something to think about.” In this regard, “Welcome” is already a great success.
Visitors can surveil “Welcome” in the museum lobby until July 2024. Curious about Turk’s other work? Check out more of his work via Instagram @gregorturk.
Authored by:
Adeline Bryant
