The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible. The prize is awarded at Tate Britain every other year, with various venues outside of London being used in alternate years. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the UK's most publicised art award. The award represents all media.
As of 2004, the monetary award was established at £40,000. There have been different sponsors, including Channel 4 television and Gordon's Gin. A prominent event in British culture, the prize has been awarded by various distinguished celebrities: in 2006 this was Yoko Ono, and in 2012 it was presented by Jude Law.
It is a controversial event, mainly for the exhibits, such as The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living – a shark in formaldehyde by Damien Hirst – and My Bed, a dishevelled bed by Tracey Emin. Controversy has also come from other directions, including Culture Minister Kim Howells criticising exhibits, a guest of honour (Madonna) swearing, prize judge Lynn Barber writing in the press, and a speech by Sir Nicholas Serota about the purchase of a trustee's work.
Background The prize was named after Turner, because, though he is now considered one of the country's greatest artists, when he was active, his work was controversial. While he is now looked at as a traditionalist, his new approach to landscape painting changed the course of art history, as many of the Turner Prize winners aspire to do.
Each year after the announcement of the four nominees and during the build-up to the announcement of the winner, the Prize receives intense attention from the media. Much of this attention is critical and the question is often asked, "Is this art?""Head to Head: Turner Prize — Is It Art?" BBC, 2 December 1999. Retrieved 22 March 2006."Turner Prize: Is It Art?" BBC, 4 November 2002. Retrieved 22 March 2006.
The shortlisted and winning artists are chosen by the prize's jury based upon a showing of their work that they have staged in the preceding year. Nominations for the prize are usually invited from the public, although these suggestions are not a significant part of the selection process according to Lynn Barber, one of the 2006 judges.Barber, Lynn (2006) "How I suffered for art's sake" The Observer, 1 October 2006. Retrieved 15 January 2006. Public nominations were not actively sought for the prize in 2020 or 2021 "given the uncertainties of lockdown". The shortlist (usually of four or five artists) is announced in July; a show of the nominees' work opens at Tate Britain in late October; the prize itself is announced at the beginning of December. The exhibition remains on view until January. The prize is officially not judged on the Tate show, however, but on the earlier exhibition for which the artist was nominated.
The exhibition and prize rely on commercial sponsorship. By 1987, money for the prize was provided by Drexel Burnham Lambert; its withdrawal after its demise led to the cancellation of the prize for 1990. Channel 4, an independent television channel, stepped in for 1991, doubling the prize money to £20,000, and supporting the event with documentaries and live broadcasts of the prize-giving. Channel 4's head of arts at the time, Waldemar Januszczak, was influential in helping set the format for the prize in the following years, such as arguing for the age limit of 50 that was in place from 1991 until 2017. In 2004, they were replaced as sponsors by Gordon's Gin, doubling the prize money to £40,000, with £5,000 going to each of the shortlisted artists, and £25,000 to the winner.
At a press conference for the 2019 prize, bus operator Stagecoach were announced as the lead sponsors of that year's prize, drawing questions from journalists as to whether the company was an appropriate sponsor, due to the chairman Brian Souter's support of Section 28 laws and campaigning against the legalisation of same-sex marriage. It was announced the following day that Tate and Turner Contemporary (the gallery hosting that year's prize) had mutually agreed to terminate the sponsorship with Stagecoach.
As much as the shortlist of artists reflects the state of British Art, the composition of the panel of judges, which includes curators and critics, provides some indication of who holds influence institutionally and internationally, as well as who are rising stars. Former Tate Director Sir Nicholas Serota was the Chair of the jury from the start of his tenure at the Tate in 1988 until 2006.
The media success of the Turner Prize contributed to the success of (and was in turn helped by) such late 1990s phenomena as the Young British Artists (several of whom were nominees and winners), Cool Britannia, and exhibitions such as the Charles Saatchi-sponsored Sensation exhibition.
Most of the artists nominated for the prize selection become known to the general public for the first time as a consequence. Some have talked of the difficulty of the sudden media exposure. Sale prices of the winners have generally increased.Kennedy, Maev (2004), "Turner prize shock: out of four serious competitors, the best artist wins" The Guardian, 7 December 2004. Retrieved 15 January 2007. Chris Ofili, Anish Kapoor and Jeremy Deller later became trustees of the Tate. Some artists, including Sarah Lucas and Julian Opie, have declined the invitation to be nominated.
Winners and nominees
History The identity of the Turner Prize is deeply associated with conceptual art. For two of its first editions, Art & Language was nominated in 1986, and Terry Atkinson, one of the founders and historical member of Art & Language, was nominated in 1985.
In 2000, Tillmans was the first photographer and first non-British artist to receive the Turner Prize.
1984 Malcolm Morley was awarded the inaugural Turner Prize for his installation of two oil-on-canvas paintings inspired by a trip to Greece. Morley's win sparked controversy because he had been living in New York for the previous 20 years. Other nominees included Richard Long, Richard Deacon and Gilbert & George, all of whom went on to win the Turner Prize themselves. The prize was awarded by Lord Gowrie, Minister for the Arts at the time.
1985 Howard Hodgkin was awarded the Turner Prize for A Small Thing But My Own. Other nominees included Terry Atkinson, sculptor Tony Cragg, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Milena Kalinovska and painting/printing artist John Walker. The prize was awarded by celebrity presenter Sir Richard Attenborough.
1986 The controversial art duo Gilbert & George were awarded the prize after a previous nomination in 1984. Other nominees included Art & Language (collaborative group composed of Michael Baldwin and Mel Ramsden), sculpture/printing artist Victor Burgin, painter Derek Jarman, painter Stephen McKenna and sculptor Bill Woodrow.
1987 Sculpture artist Richard Deacon was awarded the prize. Other nominees included graphic-style painter/printer Patrick Caulfield, Helen Chadwick, Richard Long, Declan McGonagle and Thérèse Oulton. The prize was presented by George Melly.
1988 Sculpture artist Tony Cragg was awarded the prize by Alan Yentob. Other nominees included figurative/portrait painter Lucian Freud, Pop artist Richard Hamilton, Richard Long, David Mach (graduate of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art), printer Boyd Webb, sculptor Alison Wilding and Richard Wilson. The appointment of Tate Director Nicholas Serota led to many changes such as the introduction of an annual rehang of the Collection and giving priority to modern and contemporary art. During this period the future of the Prize was uncertain. The Turner Prize was modified to be an artist-only prize without a published shortlist and a solo exhibition was awarded to the winner, Tony Cragg.
1989 Sculpture and installation artist Richard Long was presented with the prize after three previous nominations. Controversially, Long was awarded for his lifetime body of work rather than an exhibition of work in 1989. Other nominees included painter Gillian Ayres, figurative painter Lucian Freud, sculptor Giuseppe Penone, painter Paula Rego, abstract painter Sean Scully and Richard Wilson. Italian-born Giuseppe Penone became the first foreign artist to be nominated for the strength of his exhibitions in Britain.
1990 No prize was awarded due to lack of sponsorship. Under Tate Director and Turner Prize chairman Nicholas Serota, changes are made to involve the public in the viewing of the nominated artist such as a published shortlist, a nomination of four shortlisted artists and an individual exhibition of nominated work within the Tate.
1991 Anish Kapoor received the prize for an untitled piece in sandstone and pigment. Other nominees included abstract painters Ian Davenport, Fiona Rae and sculptor Rachel Whiteread.
1992 Grenville Davey received the prize for HAL, a work consisting of two abstract steel objects, each measuring . Other nominees included the Young British Artist (yBA) Damien Hirst for his installations, photographer David Tremlett and sculptor Alison Wilding.
1993 Rachel Whiteread was the winner for House, a concrete cast of the inside of a house on Grove Road, near Roman Road, London E3. Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond of the K Foundation received media coverage for the award of the "Anti-Turner Prize", £40,000 to be given to the "worst artist in Britain", voted from the real Turner Prize's short-list. Rachel Whiteread was awarded their prize. She refused to accept the money at first, but changed her mind when she heard the cash was to be burned instead, and gave £30,000 of it to artists in financial need and the other £10,000 to the housing charity, Shelter. The K Foundation went on to make a film in which they burned £1 million of their own money (Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid). Other nominees included painter Sean Scully, Laotian-born Vong Phaophanit and printer Hannah Collins.
1994 Popular sculptor Antony Gormley was awarded the 1994 Turner Prize. Other nominees included video artist Northern Irish-born Willie Doherty, whose work The Only Good One Is A Dead One was the first video piece to be nominated for the prize, painter Peter Doig and multi-media Shirazeh Houshiary.
1995 Damien Hirst was awarded the 1995 Turner Prize, which included his notorious sculpture Mother and Child, Divided. Other nominees included Lebanese-born installation/video artist Mona Hatoum, abstract painter Callum Innes and multi-media artist Mark Wallinger.
1996 Douglas Gordon became the first video artist to win the Turner Prize. Other nominees included photographer Craigie Horsfield, painter Gary Hume and installation artist Simon Patterson.
1997
The winner, Gillian Wearing, showed a video 60 minutes of Silence (1996), where a group of actors were dressed in police uniforms and had to stand still for an hour (occasional surreptitious scratching could be observed).
A drunken Tracey Emin walked out of a live Channel 4 discussion programme, presented as part of the coverage of the award. The discussion was chaired by Tim Marlow and also included Roger Scruton, Waldemar Januszczak, Richard Cork, David Sylvester and Norman Rosenthal.Clare Longrigg, Sixty Minutes, Noise: by art's bad girl, The Guardian, 4 December 1997. Emin wrote about the incident in her 2005 book Strangeland, describing her shock at reading The Guardian writeup the following day.
This was the only time in history with an all-female shortlist including sculptor Christine Borland, Angela Bulloch and sculptor Cornelia Parker.
1998