2008 Turner Prize

This article is about the 2008 Turner Prize for art.

There are four nominees for the prize:

* Runa Islam
** Bangladesh born, aged 37 [1] , trained both at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam and the Royal College of Art.
* Mark Leckey
** from London, age 44 [1] currently a film studies professor in Germany at the Städelschule in Frankfurt [4] .
* Goshka Macuga
** Polish, age 41 [1] , describes herself as a "cultural anthropologist". Her work featured in the 5th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art [3] .
* Cathy Wilkes
** from Glasgow, aged 42 [1] .

It is the first time in a decade that three of the four nominees for the £25,000 award have been women [3] . The winner of the prize will be announced on December 1 2008 and the announcement will be broadcast live on Channel 4

Turner Prize Exhibition

An exhibition of work by the nominees is shown at Tate Britain from September 30 2008 to January 18 2009. The curator is Carolyn Kerr [1] .

Works and press coverage

Runa Islam

Runa Islam's exhibited works are three films:

*"First Day of Spring" [7]
**A film shot in Dhaka, Bangladesh where Islam was born. It shows a group of rickshaw drivers taking a rest beside a deserted avenue on the first day of spring [3] [4] .
*"Cinematography" [7]
**A film shot using a mechanically controlled camera programmed, in its movement, to spell out the word 'CINEMATOGRAPHY'. The footage is of a film apparatus workshop used by JC Harry Harrison (a motion-control pioneer) in New Zealand involved in the making of The Lord of the Rings (movie) [7] . The camera moves around the location filming hardware and shelving to the sound of motor noises.
*"Be The First To see What You see As You see It" [3]
**A film showing a dreamlike sequence of a well dressed woman approaching items of crockery placed on plinths and then gently pushing the crockery off onto the floor [3] [4] [7] .

The critics said:
*(Regarding "Cinematography") "without the intervention of the curator it is virtually impossible for the viewer to figure out what we are supposed to find that's interesting. This art is academic because it was made not to communicate but to be explained. It exists solely to give lecturers and gallery guides a reason to get up in the morning." " [Watching "Cinematography"] "is torture" - "The Telegraph" [2]
*"analyses the language of cinema [...] so slowly and minutely that you start to want to scream. - "The Times" [8]
*"The three [films] here are slow, repetitious, and self-referential in their focus on the tediously obvious." - "Financial Times"

Mark Leckey

Mark Leckey's exhibited works are:
*"Industrial Light & Magic"
*"Felix gets Broadcasted"
*"Made in 'Eaven"
*"Cinema-in-the-Round"
**A 40 minute long lecture delivered by Leckey wearing evening dress, he explains why he finds some aspects of contemporary art effective and covers such subjects as cats, James Cameron's Titanic, images and objects. [1] [2] [3] [4]

The critics said:
*(Regarding "Cinema-in-the-Round") "it was gratifying to see that even members of the live audience were talking and getting up to leave." - "The Telegraph" [2]
*"comes closest to capturing the chaotic flux of the contemporary - or at least he was the artist who most succeeded in making me feel old." - "The Times" [8]
*"Mark Leckey, must win if only because here at last were glimmers of wit [...] with energy and a colourful response to a visually overloaded world." - "Financial Times" [9]

Goshka Macuga

Goshka Macuga's exhibited works are:
*"Deutsches Volk-Deutsche Arbeit"
**A glass and steel construction in a limited spiral shape.
*"House der Frau 1"
*"House der Frau 2"
*"Different Sky (Rain)"

The critics said:
*"sterile work" - "The Telegraph" [2]
*"rather beautiful...oddly moving" - "The Guardian" [4]
*" [Her work] has the theatricality of a bike-rack outside an office window [...] as visually intriguing as an airport lobby." - "The Times" [8]
*"dowdy, obscure and over-formal" - "Financial Times" [9]
*"has turned the scrap of previous exhibits into, er, different scrap" - "The Sun" [6]

Cathy Wilkes

Cathy Wilkes' exhibited work is:
*"I Give You All My Money"
**Two female mannequins in a scene somewhat like a supermarket checkout. One mannequin sits naked on a lavatory with items dangling from her head; a nurse's cap. rusty shoehorses, a deflated balloon, charred bits of wood. The other's head is enclosed in a bird cage. The scene is covered with detritus: unwashed bowls and spoons with porridge and salad dried on. The everyday items are from the artist's own home as are the leftovers.

Wilkes says of her work that it "apprehends an end point in our understanding of things as they are - a point at which words become insufficient, and the naming of objects is disconnected from our experience of them." [2]

The critics said:
*"Wilkes is using a surrealistic vocabulary that was out of date in 1940, or that her take on feminism is one that that Betty Friedan would have recognised 40 years ago." - "The Telegraph" [2]
*"Wilkes' art is a poke in the eye, a sort of curse. She goes on and on doing the same thing, and her insistence is telling and painful." - "The Guardian" [4]
*"a sinister Tracey Emin spinning strangely fetishistic, idiosyncratic tales." - "The Times" [8]
*" [a] feeble piece" - "Financial Times" [9]

Critic's reception of exhibition as a whole

*"The shortlist for this year's Turner Prize is so wilfully opaque it's irrelevant." - "The Telegraph" [2]
*"there's a depth and complexity [in the Turner exhibition] that, it would be nice to think, might overtake the usual chat about winners and losers." - "The Guardian" [4]
*"I can't help thinking that this show will prove more like the returns desk of Ikea on a Monday morning. Lots of frustrated people will be left staring at a pile of inscrutable junk." - "The Times" [8]
*"Don’t go. Don’t even think about going. This year’s Turner Prize exhibition is without competition the worst in the history of the award." - "Financial Times" [9]

Outside the exhibition, the Stuckists art group handed out leaflets with the message "The Turner Prize is Crap", to protest at the prize's lack of figurative painting. [1]

External links

Online slideshows

* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/uknews/3103290/Turner-Prize-nominations-at-Tate-Britain.html Telegraph]
* [http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2008/09/29/pictures-this-year-s-turner-prize-entries-115875-20760327/ Daily Mirror]
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2008/sep/29/turner.prize.tate?picture=338081966 Guardian]

Online video coverage

* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/7641623.stm BBC]
* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/09/29/baturnerrd129.xml Telegraph]
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/sep/30/turnerprize.art1 Guardian]

Press coverage

* [http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article4856067.ece The Turner Prize - is it art?] - "The Times", October 1 2008.
**This article provides a quote from each artist, the view of the paper's critic and comments from the public on each artist's work.

References

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art-and-architecture/news/a-mannequin-on-a-toilet-and-dry-porridge-ndash-its-the-turner-prize-945945.html

[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/09/29/baturnerrd129.xml

[3] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/09/29/baturner129.xml

[4] http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/sep/30/turnerprize.art1

[5] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/7641623.stm

[6] http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1748039.ece

[7] http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/sep/30/turnerprize.art

[8] http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article4849303.ece

[9] http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/350b3c6a-8e3d-11dd-8089-0000779fd18c.html