Turner Prize
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Categories: Awards established in 1984 | Turner Prize winners | Art awards | Early career awards | Contemporary art | British art | Culture in London | Festivals in London | British awards | Tate Gallery
The Turner Prize, named after the painter J.M.W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under 50. It is organized by the Tate Gallery, and since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicised art award. It has become associated with conceptual art, although it represents all media and painters have also won the prize. The prize fund from 2004 onwards was £40,000. There have been different sponsors, including Channel 4 television and Gordon's gin. The prize is awarded by a distinguished celebrity: in 2006 this was Yoko Ono. It is a controversial event, mainly for its exhibits, such as a shark in formaldehyde by Damien Hirst and a dishevelled bed by Tracey Emin. Controversy has also ensued from other directions, including a Culture Minister (Kim Howells criticising exhibits), a guest of honour (Madonna swearing), a prize judge (Lynn Barber writing in the press) and a speech by Sir Nicholas Serota (about the purchase of a trustee's work). The event has also regularly attracted demonstrations, notably the K Foundation and then the Stuckists, as well as alternative prizes to assert different artistic values.
IntroductionEach year after the announcement of the four nominees and during the build-up to the announcement of the winner, the Prize receives intense attention from the media. Much of this attention is critical and the question is often asked, "is this art?".[1][2] The artists usually work in "innovative" media, including video art, installation art and unconventional sculpture, though painters have also won. Artists are chosen for a show they have staged in the preceding year. Nominations for the prize are invited from the public, although this was widely considered to have negligible effect — a suspicion confirmed in 2006 by Lynn Barber, one of the judges.[3] Typically, there is a three-week period in May for public nominations to be received; the short-list (which since 1991 has been of four artists) is announced in July; a show of the nominees' work opens at Tate Britain in late October; and the prize itself is announced at the beginning of December. The show stays open till January. The prize is officially not judged on the show at the Tate, however, but on the earlier show for which the artist was nominated. The exhibition and prize rely on commercial sponsorship. From 1987 this was provided by the company Drexel Burnham Lambert; their withdrawal led to the 1990 prize being cancelled. Channel 4, an independent television channel, stepped in for 1991, doubled the prize money to £20,000, and supported the event with documentaries and live broadcasts of the prize-giving. In 2004 they were replaced as sponsors by Gordon's gin, who also doubled the prize money to £40,000, with £5,000 going to each of the shortlisted artists, and £25,000 to the winner. As much as the shortlist of artists reflects the state of British Art, the composition of the panel of judges, which includes curators and critics, provides some indication of who holds influence institutionally and internationally, as well as rising stars. Tate Director Sir Nicholas Serota has been the Chair of the jury since his tenure at the Tate (with the exception of the current year when Chairman is the Director of Tate Liverpool, where the prize is being staged). There are conflicting reports as to how much personal sway he has over the proceedings. The media success of the Turner Prize contributed to the success of (and was in turn helped by) the late 1990s phenomena of Young British Artists (several of whom were nominees and winners), Cool Britannia, and exhibitions such as the Charles Saatchi-sponsored Sensation exhibition. Most of the artists in the prize become known to the general public for the first time and some have talked of the difficulty of sudden media exposure. Sale prices of the winners have generally increased [4]. Chris Ofili, Anish Kapoor and Jeremy Deller later became trustees of the Tate. Some artists, notably Sarah Lucas, have declined the invitation to be nominated. The criteria of the Turner Prize have been challenged by alternative prizes, firstly in 1993 by the K Foundation's "Anti-Turner Prize", followed by the satirical Turnip Prize, the Stuckists "Real Turner Prize", the Daily Mail's "Not the Turner Prize" and a BBC "Mock Turner".[5] Winners and shortlisted artistsHistory1984Malcolm Morley was the winner. He was living in America. 1985Howard Hodgkin was the winner. 1986Gilbert and George were the winners. 1987Richard Deacon was the winner. He had previously been shortlisted in 1984. 1988Tony Cragg was the winner - he had been previously shortlisted in 1985. 1989Richard Long was the winner, after previously being shortlisted in 1984, 1987 and 1988. [6] 1990There was no prize that year because of lack of sponsorship. 1997The winner, Gillian Wearing, showed a video 60 minutes of Silence (1996), where a group of actors were dressed in police uniforms and had to stand still for an hour (occasional surreptitious scratching could be observed). 1998The talking point was winner Chris Ofili's use of balls of elephant dung attached to his mixed media images on canvas, as well as being used as supports on the floor to prop them up. 1999Greatest attention was given to Tracey Emin's exhibit My Bed, which was a double bed in a dishevelled state with stained sheets, surrounded by detritus such as soiled underwear, condoms, slippers and empty drink bottles. She also displayed 2-d artwork and videos. She was commonly thought to have been the winner (and is still sometimes referred to as such), although in fact the Prize was given to Steve McQueen. 2000The prize was won by Wolfgang Tillmans. Other entries included a large painting by Glenn Brown based very closely on a science fiction illustration some years previously.[7] 2001Controversy (including an egg-throwing protester) was caused by the eventual winner, Martin Creed's work, which was an empty room with the lights going on and off, but this was upstaged at the ceremony, when Madonna gave him the prize and said, "At a time when political correctness is valued over honesty I would also like to say right on motherfuckers!"[8] This was on live TV before the 9 p.m. "watershed", and an attempt to "bleep" it out was too late. Channel 4 were subsequently given an official rebuke by the Independent Television Commission.[9] 2002The media focused on a large display by Fiona Banner whose wall-size text piece, Arsewoman in Wonderland, described a pornographic film in detail. The Guardian asked, "It's art. But is it porn?" calling in "Britain's biggest porn star," Ben Dover, to comment.[10] Culture Minister Kim Howells made a scathing criticism of the exhibits. The prize was won by Keith Tyson. 2003The Chapman Brothers (Jake and Dinos Chapman) were given what was generally felt to be a long-overdue nomination, and caused press attention for a sculpture that appeared to be two cheap plastic blow-up sex dolls with a dildo. It was in fact made of bronze, painted to look like plastic. Attention was also given to transvestite Grayson Perry who exhibited pots decorated with sexual imagery. He wore a flouncy skirt to collect the prize, announced by Sir Peter Blake. 2004The media focused on a large computer simulation of a former hideout of Osama bin Laden by Ben Langlands and Nikki Bell, as well as the fact that one of their exhibits, a film in a Kabul courtroom was withdrawn as it related to an ongoing trial of a suspected Afghan warlord.[4] Jeremy Deller, the betting favourite, won. The prize money was increased this year with £25,000 to the winner, and, for the first time, other nominees were rewarded (with £5,000 each). 2005A great deal was made in the press about the winning entry by Simon Starling, which was a shed that he had converted into a boat, sailed down the River Rhine and turned back into a shed again. Two newspapers bought sheds and floated them to parody the work. The prize was presented by Culture Minister, David Lammy. Before introducing him, Sir Nicholas Serota, in an "unusual, possibly unprecedented" move, took the opportunity to make "an angry defence" of the Tate's purchase of The Upper Room.[11][12] 2006The nominees were announced on May 16, 2006. The exhibition of nominees' work opened at Tate Britain on October 3. Yoko Ono, the celebrity announcer chosen for the year, declared Tomma Abts the winner on December 4 during a live Channel 4 broadcast, although this was part of the evening news broadcast, rather than in a dedicated programme as in recent years. The total prize money was £40,000. £25,000 awarded to the winner and £5,000 to each of the other 3 nominees. The prize was sponsored by the makers of Gordon’s gin. Under the Freedom of Information Act, The Sunday Telegraph obtained emails between the Tate and judge Lynn Barber, which revealed that the judges had been sent a list of shows by artists too late to be able to see them and instead were being supplied with catalogues and photographs of work.[13] More controversy ensued when Barber wrote in The Observer about her troubles as a judge, even asking, "Is it all a fix?",[3] a comment subsequently displayed on a Stuckist demonstration placard, much to her chagrin.[14] The Judges were:
2007The winner of the £25,000 Prize was Mark Wallinger.[15] For the first time the Turner Prize is held outside of London, in Tate Liverpool (in support of Liverpool's being the European Capital of Culture in 2008). Concurrently there is an exhibition of previous winners at Tate Britain in London. Unlike recent years, Sir Nicholas Serota is not the jury chairman; instead, the chairman is Christoph Grunenberg, the Director of Tate Liverpool. The panel is:[16]
The nominees were:[17]
Nelson and Wallinger have both previously been nominated for the prize. The Stuckists announced that they were not demonstrating for the first time since 2000, because of "the lameness of this year's show, which does not merit the accolade of the traditional demo". [18] Instead, art group AAS reenacted previous Stuckist demonstrations in protest against their own practice at the Royal Standard Turner Prize Extravaganza[19] CriticismFor
| ||||||||||||||
