Tate Online – The Turner Prize

By Tate Online, 19 December 2005

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Jemima Rellie, Head of Digital Programmes at Tate, tells us about the Turner Prize and how, if you can’t visit the exhibition at Tate Britain, you can still share your thoughts on Europe’s leading contemporary art prize on Tate’s website, which is sponsored by BT.

Tate Online: The Turner Prize

2005’s was the twenty-first Turner Prize. The annual award was established by the Patrons of New Art ( Tate Online: Patrons of New Art ), and is intended to promote public discussion of new developments in contemporary British art. It is now widely recognised as one of the most important and prestigious awards for the visual arts. In 2004, new sponsors Gordon’s gin increased the prize fund to £40,000 with £25,000 being awarded to the winner and £5,000 each to the other shortlisted artists.

The 2005 winner was Simon Starling. The award was presented on Monday 5 December by the Minister for Culture, David Lammy MP, live on Channel 4.

Since its inception in 1984, the Turner Prize has sparked debate and invited members of the public to share their diverse opinions about contemporary art. With new sections on Tate Online including films about the artists, Gordon’s Judge for Yourself Tour, and online comments board and podcasts submitted by the public, it has never been easier for the public to share their thoughts about the Prize.

Turner Prize 2005 – the Shortlist and Exhibition
(Tate Online: Turner Prize 2005)

The shortlist is announced each year in June with an exhibition of the shortlisted artists’ work going on show at Tate Britain in October. The winner of the Prize is announced in early December.

The four artists shortlisted for the Turner Prize 2005 were Darren Almond, Gillian Carnegie, Jim Lambie and Simon Starling. An exhibition of their work is at Tate Britain until 22 January 2006.

Darren Almond presents his intimate four-screen video installation If I Had You. The installation articulates the emotional longing and losses of the artist’s grandmother as she observes a lone pair of dancers in the famous Tower ballroom in Blackpool. Almond continues to explore the parameters of time and space and their physical and emotional effects on us. Addressing themes of nostalgia, love and memory, the piece exposes human vulnerability in the face of time.
Tate Online: Darren Almond’s entry

Gillian Carnegie presents an installation of paintings covering a breadth of subjects and diversity of technique. Working in the traditional genres of landscape, still-life, portraiture and the nude, Carnegie investigates the materiality of the medium and provides a challenge to its established languages. Her darkly visceral Black Square paintings are included in the display as well as previously unseen work.
Tate Online: Gillian Carnegie’s entry

Jim Lambie transforms his room through a compelling new site specific installation. His striking floor piece using vinyl tape responds to the unique architecture of the gallery. He also shows three new sculptural assemblages which, with characteristic ingenuity, combine diverse materials and resurrect found objects to evoke a range of associations.
Tate Online: Jim Lambie’s entry

Simon Starling presents Shedboatshed (Mobile Architecture No.2) , a circuitous project in which a wooden boathouse was transformed into a boat, paddled down the Rhine and remade as a boathouse. Starling raises ideas about nature, technology and economics to reveal hidden relationships and histories. He also shows Tabernas Desert Run, the improvised hydrogen-fuelled bicycle on which he crossed the Spanish desert and the botanical watercolour of a cactus he painted with the bicycle’s only waste product, water.
Tate Online: Simon Starling’s entry

The Jury

The members of the Turner Prize 2005 jury were: Louisa Buck, London contemporary art correspondent, The Art Newspaper; Kate Bush, Head of Art Galleries, Barbican Art Gallery; Caoimhin Mac Giolla Leith, art critic and Lecturer, Modern Irish Department, University College Dublin; Eckhard Schneider, Director, Kunsthaus Bregenz; and Nicholas Serota, Director, Tate and Chairman of the Jury.

Nominations for this year’s Prize were invited from the public by e-mail at www.tate.org.uk/turnerprize before 11 May 2005. For the purposes of nomination for the Turner Prize, the term British applies to all artists working in the United Kingdom and to British-born artists who may be working abroad. The jury reserved the right to consider any artist not already nominated.

Gordon’s Judge For Yourself

This year the debate has been extended by an innovative initiative to take a small exhibition of the Turner Prize to train stations around the UK. The Gordon’s Judge For Yourself Tour, was the first time that elements of the Turner Prize had been taken outside Tate Britain. It included films and interviews with the public, interactive screens and audioguides to each artist’s work and a comments wall where commuters could pen their responses to the Prize. The tour was unveiled at London Victoria train station by journalist and broadcaster Janet Street-Porter and Minister for Culture, David Lammy MP; they kick-started the debate by posting their own opinions on the special comments wall. The Gordon’s Judge For Yourself Tour travelled for three weeks in November 2005 to London Victoria, Manchester and Edinburgh Waverley. The tour was experienced by 120,000 commuters. A film that was commissioned as part of the Gordon’s Judge For Yourself Tour can be watched on Tate Online.

Comment Online

The last gallery of the Turner Prize exhibition at Tate Britain is a dedicated viewing room for films about the shortlisted artists, and also a space for visitors to write their comments about the Prize and exhibition. For anyone not able to make it to the exhibition, they can watch these insightful films on Tate Online and then post their comments about the exhibition in a shared opinions section . This year, for the first time, Tate has devised a Podcast section of the website, enabling the public to contribute unofficial ‘alternative’ audio guide tours which can then be made available as podcasts to visitors to Tate Online.

Previous winners of the Turner Prize are: 1984 Malcolm Morley; 1985 Howard Hodgkin; 1986 Gilbert & George; 1987 Richard Deacon; 1988 Tony Cragg; 1989 Richard Long; 1990 (Prize suspended); 1991 Anish Kapoor; 1992 Grenville Davey; 1993 Rachel Whiteread; 1994 Antony Gormley; 1995 Damien Hirst; 1996 Douglas Gordon; 1997 Gillian Wearing; 1998 Chris Ofili ; 1999 Steve McQueen; 2000 Wolfgang Tillmans ; 2001 Martin Creed; 2002 Keith Tyson; 2003 Grayson Perry; 2004 Jeremy Deller. Visitors to Tate Online can find out more about the history of the award and test their knowledge in the Turner Prize quiz .