Turner Prize 2008

While wandering through the Tate Britain to get to the Turner Prize shortlisted chosen few exhibition I stumbled upon former Turner Prize winner Martin Creed’s (you know, he of the Work No 227 – the lights going off and on) latest conceptual bright idea, Work No 850, which, according to the blurb in the Tate’s Oct/Nov guide states that Creed’s latest work centres on a simple idea: that a person runs as fast as they can every 30 seconds through the 86-metre-long space. It is about physicality, human spirit and space…apparently.

Anyway, I digress and I only mentioned it as these sprinters kept running past me and startling me. So onwards to the Turner Prize 2008.

Four have been shortlisted and they are Goshka Macuga, Mark Leckey, Cathy Wilkes and Runa Islam. It is the first time I have visited the Turner Prize exhibition as I always believed it was, as the saying goes, money for old rope. I kinda believed it made a mockery of art. Turner Prize represented the emperor with no clothes. I like art, it enriches and liberates but I always had a blindspot for the Turner Prize and conceptual installation art. And the event is beyond parody and satire.

But… hey, I told myself, just have a look and see what you think. Though with conceptual installation art I find myself focusing on, “yeah, but what does it mean”?

I liked Cathy Wilkes installation pieces that examines the complexities and contradictions of gender and are quite powerful, such as We Are Pro-Choice and the fascinating I Give You All My Money which comprise of two supermarket conveyor belts with dirty dishes on top.

Also there is a feminist theme in Goshka Macuga’s work, I liked her glass, steel and fabric installation, Haus der Frau 2 (2008) along with the photographic collages, whose technique and style appealed to me. Ruma Islam’s film Be The First To See What You See As You See It that shows a woman drinking tea from a teacup then knocking the various bits of china on the floor, nicely edited, stylistically pleasing where the woman stares through the handle of a teapot and especially liked the slo-mo action where the cups and saucers go crashing and smashing on the floor. Overall I still found it uninspiring and derivative.

Finally, there’s the film of Mark Leckey’s Cinema-in-the-Round that examines the interaction of animation, art, film and popular culture, from the works of Philip Guston, The Simpsons, Felix the Cat, James Cameron and Jeff Koons. It’s kinda surreal to watch and there was something David Lynch-esque about the proceedings. I found it engaging but it left me feeling too clever by half.

But what interested and fascinated me was the comment cards stuck on the walls outside the exhibition (and believe me, they are well worth some time spent reading….”uninspiring, and alienating” said one). Seems like the serious money is on Leckey. And this being the first time in ten years 3 women have been shortlisted. There have only been 3 women winners of the Turner Prize, Rachel Whiteread in 1993, Gillian Wearing in 1997 and Tomma Abts in 2006. Sexism and art, what’s new!

If you are interested…. the prize winner will be announced on the 1st December.