The prestigious Turner Prize has just been awarded to Martin Boyce at the BALTIC gallery in Gateshead, and this is the “a quietly atmospheric, lyrically autumnal installation” that won it. The 43-year-old can now proudly strut around as the hottest British artist under 50. Not so lucky: his fellow nominees George Shaw, Karla Black, and Hilary Lloyd.
The Glasgow-based artist’s award winning exhibition at Gateshead has drawn more than 100,000 visitors since October. What do you think of these nature-inspired forms, beloved by the judges? Are you moved by his “modernist garden” with triangle leaves and “sparse, intelligent sculptures”? Does it inspire “a new sense of poetry” in you? Check out everyone’s work after the jump, and let us know who you think should have won in the comments. Read More »
Yesterday it was announced that Glasgow-born artist Susan Philipsz had won the 2010 Turner Prize for “Lowlands,” a sound installation featuring her performance of a 16th century Scottish lament by a sailor lost at sea. While it was the first time that a sound installation had even been shortlisted for the contemporary art prize, she was the favorite among bookies to win.
Philipsz — who is only the fourth woman to win the Turner Prize — presented her 2008 sound installation I See a Darkness at the Tanya Bonakdar gallery in New York earlier this year. If you live in London, be sure to check out Surround Me, a multi-site public sound project and her first commission in the city. It can be heard on weekends from 10am to 5 pm through January 2nd.
1. Winter’s Bone, a gritty family drama that’s set in the Midwest and based on Daniel Woodrell’s 2006 novel of the same name, won top honors at the Gotham Independent Film Awards last night. [via WSJ]
2. “How does it feel to know that you could have any man in the world? Or woman? How does it feel to know that you can turn straight women gay? … No one woman should have that much power.” – Kanye West interviews Rihanna in the December/January issue of Interview magazine
3. Vulture has learned that Grey’s Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes is working on a new series for ABC that’s inspired by the career of pr guru Judy Smith — whose has worked with Bill Clinton, Michael Vick, and David Paterson.
4. These New Puritans’ latest album Hidden has been crowned NME’s Album Of The Year for 2010; Foals’ “Spanish Sahara” was named the Best Track.
5. After some recent drama with the Tate Britain and press photographers, the Turner Prize is moving from London to the city of Derry, in Northern Ireland, come 2013. [via UnBeige]
Bonus link: Did NASA Discover Life on One of Saturn’s Moons?
1. As his punishment for getting nabbed with music-related contraband, Lil Wayne has been moved into solitary confinement at Rikers Island. [via NYND]
2. It’s official: Zack Snyder (300 and Watchmen) is directing the new Superman movie, which Christopher Nolan is producing. Let’s hope it’s better than Superman Returns. [via THR]
3. Last night Bruce Willis wore a Lady Gaga-inspired meat toupee when he stopped by The Late Show. (video) [via Vulture]
4. Find out what the critics think about the art works competing for this year’s Turner Prize, which are currently on display at Tate Britain. [via BBC]
5. A 27-year-old man at the London book launch for Freedom stole Jonathan Franzen‘s glasses and demanded a ransom of £100,000. He has since been arrested. [via BBC]
Bonus link: Hitchcock clips used to remake the Inception trailer
While the jury is still out on the 2010 Turner Prize — and will be until the winner is named December 6 — the four nominees for this year’s award have just been announced: painter Dexter Dalwood, painter/sculptor Angela de la Cruz, filmmakers Kodwo Eshun and Anjalika Sagar of the Otolith Group, and sound artist Susan Philipsz.
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ArtsBeat reports that a gold leaf fresco by 2009 Turner Prizer-winner Richard Wright has been sanded and painted over by workers at the Tate Britain — and it wasn’t an accident. Wright, who told The Guardian that he believes that there’s “too much stuff in the world,” intends for his elaborate wall paintings to be temporary.
“Why has the Sistine Chapel survived? Because we need it. Some things are necessary. But perhaps not as many things as we think.”
Fair enough — we hate hoarding and we can imagine how this sort of thing would be freeing. But it seems like a shame when you consider how much work went into its creation: a drawn cartoon was transferred to the wall, painted with adhesive, and then covered with gold leaf. And what of the people who didn’t get to the Tate Britain to see it? Hopefully someone is planning to turn all of that sanded gold dust into cash.
The Turner Prize committee has announced this year’s winner for the top art prize in Great Britain, and it doesn’t involve text-based art, bodily fluids, minimalism, or performance. Instead, artist Richard Wright uses classical fresco techniques learned from Old Masters tradition to create temporary, site-specific installations like the gold-leafed piece currently residing in an empty room in the Tate Britain. The Rorschach-like mural is a far cry from the sensationalist circus of Turners past, and a dark horse winner in this year’s contest.
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1. Tao Lin and Carles of Hipster Runoff have a new “sound project ” called Jesus Christ (the indie band); listen to their first MP3, “is this really what you want?,” now. [via GvB]
2. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski used Bruce Springsteen song titles to explain the rules of the Internet at a music policy conference. A sample: “The people who built the Internet were working on more than a computer network, they were Working on a Dream. It was a network that was Born to Run in a land of open protocols, (the Promised Land).” [via WSJ]
3. Sony Pictures TV and Mark Burnett are partnering to remake Fantasy Island as a reality show. We doubt it will be a bigger hit than MILF Island. [via Variety]
4. The Swiss Justice Ministry rejected Roman Polanski’s appeal to be released from prison because they think he’s a flight risk. [via HuffPo]
5. Critics say this year’s Turner Prize exhibition is boring. “There’s no sensation, no video, no blood, no outrage.” [via Bloomberg]
Bonus link: The Instant Art Critique Phrase Generator
Steve McQueen is, without question, one of Her Majesty’s finest artists — he collected the isle’s illustrious Turner Prize in 1999 and will represent the Union Jack at this year’s Venice Biennale. But a feature-length filmmaker too? Now that deserves an in-depth interrogation. We sat down with the amiable, bear-like gentleman a few days back to discuss the naked truth about Hunger, his commanding, critically-acclaimed study of Northern Ireland’s notorious Maze prison and, in turn, its most notorious resident: IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands. (See our review of the film here.)
Flavorwire: Can you recall your first encounter with Bobby Sands and his hunger strike?
Steve McQueen: I was 11 years old when I saw this image of a man on the television — I didn’t know who he was. Underneath his image, there was a number. And every evening on the news, that number would increase. I thought it was his age. It wasn’t; it was the amount of days this person had been on hunger strike. In some strange way, it was the beginning of the end of my childhood. The idea that someone stopped eating in order to be heard — this made a big impression on me as an 11-year-old kid. I didn’t know what the situation was about exactly, but, as I got older, I found out.
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Last week Mark Leckey — the only male artist on the shortlist — won Britain’s Turner Prize. We didn’t know who he was — but that’s part of the point of the Turner Prize, to give airtime to artists we don’t already know — so we decided to find out what we could. In order of impressions: he speaks a bit like Russell Brand, he seems to think very very slowly, and this is either an elaborate and ground-breaking piece of performance art (possible) or a sign that his work is actually all over the place (likely).
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