The Turner Prize

On the day that it was announced that the artist Susan Philipsz had won Britain’s biggest contemporary art prize for her sound installation, Lowlands, dozens of students had invaded Tate Britain to protest against cuts in funding for the arts. Does the Turner Prize reflect the state of “British art” today?

James Boaden and Sarah Turner (Department of History of Art) will discuss the Turner Prize 2010 in relation to contemporary debates surrounding the function of art prizes and art institutions in the cultural life of the nation — an issue which has been thrown into an even sharper light by the announcement by the Tate that the Turner Prize will be held in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, in 2013 in a bid to “attract new audiences around the country and bring the prize to a wider and more diverse audience outside the capital.”

Some suggestions for preliminary reading:

• Julian Stallabrass, High Art Lite (London: Verson, 1999), 175-180 (photocopy available from folder behind reception in Berrick Saul Building).
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/oct/05/turner-prize-2010-shortlist-critics?intcmp=239
• http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/turnerprize/history/essay.shtm

This is the second seminar in the Lightning Rods series, organised by the HRC and the Centre for Modern Studies