Ian Bunn | Political & Popular Culture Arts

David Lister the British Arts Editor for The Independent and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, has published an article in The Independent titled ‘The Turner Prize and its judges have painted themselves into a corner’. Lister states “I have never fully “got” the Turner Prize. This week, as every year, it certainly made a stir and found an interesting winner in Elizabeth Price, a 45-year-old video artist formerly of the eighties pop band Talulah Gosh (I must have been washing my hair during their 15 minutes of fame, because I can’t recall them at all). But with or without memories of Talulah Gosh, the Turner Prize, presented by the statutory celebrity, this year Jude Law, proved again one of the biggest and glitziest events in the arts calendar. …It has a mission. Other arts awards don’t. The Oscars and Baftas don’t have a stated purpose to encourage people to debate and love film. The Comedy Awards don’t solemnly claim that their objective is to get the populace discussing what makes them laugh. But the Turner Prize comes with a mission statement. It professes that it is, “intended to promote public discussion of new developments in contemporary British art”. …two of the four on this year’s shortlist were video artists, the third was a performance artist, and the fourth an artist who drew with a hint of excrement. There was no painter. I suspect that there is still puzzlement in public understanding about video art, just as I suspect there is still puzzlement over why painting is the poor relation in contemporary art. How helpful it would have been this week if the chair of the Turner Prize judges, Penelope Curtis, the head of Tate Britain, had “promoted public discussion of new developments in contemporary art” by addressing that publicly. Is there a crisis in British painting, Penelope? Does that make you sad, as the head of one of the most famous homes of painting in the world? Sure, let’s have the parties, and the prizes presented by actors. But let’s have the real discussion too. Remember that mission statement.”

Inspired by The Independent ow.ly/gdKYA image source Twitter ow.ly/gdKW3

Elizabeth Price the 46 year old British artist and former member of indie pop bands having been awarded the Turner Prize for her video trilogy, the first video artist to win for over a decade. The jury “admired the seductive and immersive qualities of Price’s video trilogy, which reflects the ambition that has characterised her work in recent years. They were impressed by the way Price creates a rhythmic and ritualistic experience through her film installations combining different materials and technical vocabularies from archival footage and popular music videos to advertising.” Charlotte Higgins in a Guardian article states “Were she starting out now, her career in art – one that has just been crowned by her winning this year’s Turner prize – would be impossible, Elizabeth Price has said. The artist, who was awarded the £25,000 prize on Monday, criticised the government’s introduction of the Ebacc qualification in schools. …Price, who attended a comprehensive school in Luton before studying art at the University of Oxford, where she also now teaches, criticised the withdrawal of state funding for humanities and arts at universities. The result, she said, is that “these will become the subjects of the privileged, and history-writing and novel-writing and art-making and poetry-writing will become homogenous in terms of class and social background”. Her career – making video art whose value in the commercial world is insufficient to support her – has been possible only because of publicly funded arts institutions, she said. “If you look at my CV, just about everything I have done has come through a publicly funded institution; it is a career entirely built on that sort of support.” It would never have happened without the “generous opportunities I’ve had through education and public funding”.

Inspired by Charlotte Higgins ow.ly/g205S image source deskarati ow.ly/g20A0

Brilliant the way society has embraced me (March 7th)

Grayson Perry the 51 year old UK Turner Prize winning artist renowned for his ceramic classical form vases and cross-dressing female alter-ego ‘Claire’ claims in an interview with Anna Somers Cocks, that ‘Claire’ “gave me clarity. I always describe it as someone tidying up my tool shed so that I had everything easily to hand and wasn’t fumbling in the dark any more.” Perry states “She started as a spontaneous welling up of my sexuality when I was about 13. At first, I just tried to look like a woman. I would go shopping and wander about town, and it was a bit boring. …when I was about 40. I was having therapy and reconsidering everything, so I thought of wearing clothes that represented the extremes of femininity, and from that day on I indulged my fantasies… It’s brilliant the way society has embraced me, but it has taken some of the thrill out of dressing up. A side effect is that, in the past, when I dressed up and went out into the street, people would say, “Who’s that weird bloke?” while now I’m “Grayson Perry”, which means that I’m in danger of getting pestered.”

Inspired by Anna Somers Cocks http://ow.ly/9m9n0 image source http://ow.ly/9m9hh

You need to find people to talk to and to learn (December 1st)

Martin Boyce the 43 year old UK artist renowned for his modernist sculptures and installations has been nominated for Turner Prize following his Swiss exhibition at Galerie Eva Presenhuber. Boyce’s sculptures have been described as a form of nonsensical modernism, appearing to dreamingly merge into each other to form a larger interior modernist installation. Boyce in an interview with Coline Milliard, stated “In my early teens I realized it was as much about looking as it was about making. My world was record sleeves, music and taking in your jeans to give them a narrow leg. Pop art and pop culture were my way in … You need to find people to talk to and to learn about the things that matter to you — it’s essential. Now with college and university fees that crucial breadth of people you might meet will be narrowed.”

Inspired by Coline Milliard http://ow.ly/7A1jg image source artmw http://ow.ly/7A1DG

I started making sculptures and never stopped (November 25th)

Karla Black the 38 year old Scottish sculptor renowned for her use of everyday objects in her work has been nominated for the 2011 Turner Prize. Black’s work has been exhibited at various well placed galleries including the Tate Britain, Kunsthalle Nürnberg, and the Saatchi Gallery. Black has a Master of Arts from the Glasgow School of Art, and uses feminine objects in her work including cosmetics, toiletries, textiles and pastel colours. In an interview with Coline Milliard, Black stated “I didn’t study art at school. I left when I was 16 and got a job … I started to read a lot and go to galleries in my late teens … I had a feeling that I wanted to “do” something but I didn’t know what  … I started making sculptures and never stopped.

Inspired by Coline Milliard http://ow.ly/7rMHf image source facebook http://ow.ly/7rMMA

Give the building a bit of an edge (September 8th)

Tracey Karima Emin the 48 year old UK artist of the YBA grouping (Young British Artists), Venice Biennale representative and Turner Prize nominee, has installed a neon artwork at Number 10 Downing Street after being invited to create a work by PM David Cameron. The neon artwork installed outside the Terracotta Room, on the first floor of the prime minister’s official residence, is a sign that reads “More Passion” has been donated by Emin to the UK government’s art collection. Emin a supporter of the current Conservative Party under David Cameron, came to fame at the Charles Saatchi’s Sensation exhibition with her 1997 piece ‘Everyone I have ever slept with 1963-1995’. The Terracotta Room is generally used for hospitality purposes, is visible when climbing the Number 10’s main staircase.

Inspired by Jill Lawless http://ow.ly/6fhLn image source Piers Allardyce http://ow.ly/6fhUb

Anish Kapoor the 55 year old Indian sculptor who has resided in London since the early 1970’s and is a Royal Academician, CBE and supporter of the British Humanist Association has lashed out at the British conservative government cuts to the arts. Kapoor a Turner prize winning artist has accused the government of neo-rightwing policies in rolling back arts funding to the Thatcher years, warning the damage will take decades to recover. Arts funding in the past has enabled many of today’s high profile British artists to emerge internationally including Lucian Freud, Tracey Emin, Antony Gormley and Francis Bacon. Kapoor is angry that young artists today will not have the same support from public institutions that he received.

Inspired by Coline Milliard ht.ly/4pG6K image source team art in berlin ow.ly/4uckt