Read more: Turner Prize winner Helen Marten will share £25,000 winnings with fellow nominees
The Turner Prize was created in 1984 to celebrate contemporary art in Britain. Since then, four artists have been shortlisted every year by an independent panel competing for a grand prize of £25,000. Runners up get £5,000 each.
This year, the nominations have been given to Hurvin Anderson, Andrea Büttner, Lubaina Himid and Rosalind Nashashibi.
The award has a history of stirring up as much controversy as it does inspiration but is a cornerstone of the British art world. In 1995, Damien Hirst said of the prize: "It’s amazing what you can do with an E in A-Level art, a twisted imagination and a chainsaw".
WIRED's creative director Andrew Diprose spoke of this year's Turner Prize as carrying on a tradition of provocative and inspiring artworks.
"Going back to 1989, I love the brilliant ‘walking artist’ Richard Long for his recording of time and spaces with maps, photography and simple typography," Diprose explains. "Fast forward to 1993 and I was wowed by Rachel Whiteread [the first female to win the award] and her awe-inspiring ‘inside out’ concrete House – if I had a time machine I’d go back to Bow and revisit it. Then jump ten years to Grayson Perry’s unsettling, emotional, autobiographical use of pottery, what craft!"
The main change to this year's award is the upper age limit. From 2017, the award is no longer restricted to those under the age of 50 which meant that two out of this year's four nominees – Himid (63) and Anderson (52) – would not have been eligible in recent years. Here are the nominees:
Born in Birmingham in 1965, Anderson studied painting at the Royal College of Art and is known for solo exhibitions such as Foreign Body and Backdrop. His work Is It OK to be black? is diffuse with colour and contrast, populated by images of iconic black figures – politicians, musicians and sportsmen - set against a blue background. Anderson took inspiration for the piece from eclectic barbershop decorations set up in the homes of new Caribbean immigrants in the 1950s. Anderson describes the scene as "being caught in two places at once", in a space that represents both UK and Caribbean culture – a space in which to question the nature of personal identity.
German artist Andrea Büttner has a diverse portfolio of work. It ranges from woodcuts, reverse glass painting, sculpture, video and performance pieces. She often connects her art to social, ethical religious issues, often with religious connotations. In 2007, her video Little Works showcased incredible footage from a Carmelite nun named Sister Luke, which followed the ways in which the sisters made various small crafts by hand. Her installation, Gesamtzusammenhang, which translates to 'Bigger Picture', brings together artistic and non-artistic questions about the nature of humanity and community.
Himid's work often focuses on the idea of reclaimed identities and cultural history. Her powerful 2004 exhibit at the Hatton Gallery in Newcastle depicted 100 life-size painted cut-out figures, exploring the history of the slave/servant dynamic as well as ideas of empire. Each cut-out has a real name, and a recorded track playing throughout the exhibition narrates who they were, comparing their lives before enslavement with their new name and their new circumstances, as they attempt to reconcile the two. Himid is also a professor of Contemporary Art at the University of Central Lancashire.
Rosalind Nashashibi is a Palestinian-English artist based in Liverpool. Her nominated exhibition, On this Island opened at the Contemporary Arts Centre Gallery in October. Much of her work consists of films of everyday life in urban environments, mainly on 16mm film. Her project Electric Gaza presents a different depiction of the region to those showed in the news. From scenes of children playing to the everyday working of a market, Nashashibi creates a new perception of Gaza for those watching her film. By using a mixture of real-life footage and animation, she balances scenes of struggle with those of activism.
The variety of talent demonstrated this year is of an enviable quality but, of the four nominees, Diprose has a particular favourite: "My pick for this year would be Rosalind Nashashibi for Electrical Gaza 2015, using compelling observation of ‘everyday life’ through film and animation to upturn our perception of a place we have so many preconceptions about."
However, the Turner prize has never been predictable and the choices for who should win have often proved divisive. In 2001, Martin Creed's 'The Lights Going On and Off' displayed a blank room in which - you guessed it - the lights went on and off. That being said, Helen Marten, winner of the 2016 award, was selected particularly due to the provocative and layered meaning of her collection of hybrid sculptures. She later shared her winnings with her fellow nominees.
"I have so many favourite artists from past winners of the prize it’s tough to pick one in particular," Diprose says, "the joy of the prize must be the variety and surprises it’s thrown up over 33 years."
Turner Prize 2017 exhibition will be staged at Ferens Art Gallery in Hull from September onwards, with the winner announced on December 5.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
