The Turner Prize 2017 shortlist has just been announced at Tate Britain. The artists chosen are from diverse multicultural backgrounds and are relatively unknown. Artists Hurvin Anderson, Andrea Büttner, Lubaina Himid and Rosalind Nashashibi will now go head to head in the competition which will be held this year, at Ferens Art Gallery, in Hull, as part of the UK City of Culture celebrations. The exhibition runs from 26 September 2017 to 7 January 2018. The winner will be announced on 5 December 2017 at an award ceremony live on the BBC, the broadcast partner for the Turner Prize.
The 2017 Turner Prize shortlist is a far more accurate reflection of artists working in Britain today
This year the Turner committee scrapped their under 50 age ceiling which was deemed ageist. One of the best-known prizes for the visual arts in the world, the Turner Prize aims to promote public debate around new developments in contemporary British art. Established in 1984, it is awarded to a British artist for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work in the twelve months preceding 24 April 2017. The Turner Prize award is £40,000 with £25,000 going to the winner and £5,000 each for the other shortlisted artists. Every other year, the prize leaves Tate Britain and is presented at a venue outside London.
The members of the Turner Prize 2017 jury are Dan Fox, writer and co-Editor at Frieze; Martin Herbert, art critic; Mason Leaver-Yap, Walker Art Center’s Bentson Scholar of Moving Image and Associate Curator at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin; and Emily Pethick, Director of Showroom. The jury is chaired by Alex Farquharson, Director of Tate Britain.
HURVIN ANDERSON
For his solo exhibitions Hurvin Anderson: Dub Versions at New Art Exchange in Nottingham and Hurvin Anderson: Backdrop at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Canada. The jury praised Anderson as an outstanding British painter whose art speaks to our current political moment with questions about identity and belonging and recognised a deeper interplay between figuration and abstraction in his work. Drawing from art history as much as his own Caribbean heritage, the artist’s dream-like paintings are compositionally dense and vibrant, combining geometric and gestural shapes alongside portraiture, landscape and still-life.
ANDREA BÜTTNER
For her solo exhibitions Andrea Büttner: Gesamtzusammenhang at Kunsthalle Sankt Gallen in Switzerland and Andrea Büttner at David Kordansky in Los Angeles. The jury noted Büttner’s unique approach to collaboration and her exploration of religion, morality and ethics, articulated through a wide range of media including printmaking, sculpture, video and painting. Often incorporating archival material, Büttner’s exhibitions investigate shame, vulnerability and poverty. Using low media such as woodcuts or home videos, Büttner is interested in the role of the amateur in the production of culture.
Lubaina Himid Nottingham Contemporary
LUBAINA HIMID
For projects including solo exhibitions Lubaina Himid: Invisible Strategies at Modern Art Oxford and Navigation Charts at Spike Island in Bristol, as well as her participation in the group exhibition The Place is Here at Nottingham Contemporary. The jury praised these exhibitions for addressing pertinent questions of personal and political identity. As a key figure of the Black Arts Movement, Himid has consistently foregrounded the contribution of the African diaspora to Western culture. Working across painting, installation, drawing and printmaking, and bringing both old and new work together, her work is both visually arresting and critical.
ROSALIND NASHASHIBI
For her solo exhibition On This Island at The University Art Galleries at UC Irvine’s Claire Trevor School of the Arts in California, and her participation in Documenta 14. The jury was impressed by the depth and maturity of Nashashibi’s work, which often examines sites of human occupation and the coded relationships that occur within those spaces – whether a family home or garden, a ship or the Gaza Strip. Her films use the camera as an eye to observe moments and events, contrasting reality with moments of fantasy and myth. They show how the intimate and everyday collide with issues of surveillance and control.
Hull UK City of Culture 2017 is a 365-day programme of cultural events and creativity inspired by the city and told to the world. Hull secured the title of UK City of Culture 2017 in November 2013. It is only the second city to hold the title and the first in England. Divided into four seasons, this nationally significant event draws on the distinctive spirit of the city and the artists, writers, directors, musicians, revolutionaries and thinkers that have made such a significant contribution to the development of art and ideas.
The gallery is hosting the Turner Prize as one of its major events during Hull’s UK City of Culture 2017 programme as well as a dramatic exhibition SKIN, on display until 13 August. It explores how modern and contemporary artists respond to the human figure with world-renowned works by one of the world’s greatest realist painters Lucian Freud, leading sculpture Ron Mueck and American photographer Spencer Tunick.