The Turner Prize 2010

Much has changed in the twenty-six years since the Turner Prize was launched. Today the prize is awarded each December to 'a British artist under fifty for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work in the twelve months preceding', rather than to 'the person who has made the greatest contribution to art in Britain'; meaning that curators, critics and administrators were also eligible. The Tate’s evolving definition of ‘British’ over the years has been another subtle but significant change. Reflecting the nation’s increasingly cosmopolitan art scene, a number of recent nominees are British not by birth but by choice, such as 2006 prize-winner Tomma Abts, who moved to London from Germany in 1995. Meanwhile many British-born nominees reside oversees, including 2005 winner Simon Starling, who divides his time between Copenhagen and Berlin. 

Another shift can be seen in the widening mix of artistic approaches and mediums. The 2010 shortlist, for example, features the first sound installation in the history of the prize. Susan Philipsz has made her name with a series of evocative pieces that use recordings of her own voice to respond to the character of specific locations. Lowlands, the work currently on ‘view’ at the Turner Prize exhibition (until 9 January 2011), was previously installed under three bridges along Glasgow’s river Clyde, where its tune, a 16th-century Scottish lament about a drowned sailor, benefited from the site’s unique historic and acoustic resonances. Unfortunately, much of this magic has been lost in its reinstallation at Tate Britain.

Angela de la Cruz nominally works as a painter, but her mangled canvases could just as easily be (and often are) described as sculpture. Their resemblance to the work of American artist Steven Parrino, who died in 2005, is strong but perhaps misleading. Instead of torturing the corpse of painting, as Parrino did with his mutilated abstractions, de la Cruz puts her canvases through the paces of an almost Chaplinesque slapstick routine. Your opinion of them depends on your ability to spot the comedy.

In terms of materials and techniques, Dexter Dalwood is this year’s most traditional nominee. But his oil paintings of landscapes and domestic interiors feature evocative titles (Burroughs in Tangiers, for example, or The Death of David Kelly) that, in a sense, turn them into set designs for unmade films. Every year sectors of the British public loudly announce that it’s about time a painter won the Turner Prize (in the award’s history, only five painters have won it). But because Dalwood is almost certainly not the best that British painting has to offer, a win by him would be something of a disappointment.

The most innovative artworks in this year’s Turner Prize exhibition are the creations of the Otolith Group, a collective headed by Kodwo Eshun and Anjalika Sagar. Intellectually promiscuous and influenced by subjects that range from postcolonial archives to science fiction, the Otolith Group has been nominated on the basis of A Long Time Between Suns, a two-part exhibition and the playfully erudite publication that accompanied it. Their fictive documentary Otolith III is a ‘pre-make’ of an unfilmed screenplay by legendary Indian director Satyajit Ray. Visitors willing to invest fifty minutes in it are rewarded with some of the most thought-provoking moments in recent Turner history. A victory for Otolith would therefore be the clearest endorsement of British art’s bright future. Unfortunately, the bookmakers disagree; odds on the Otolith Group are currently 9-1.

The winner of The Turner Prize 2010 will be announced on 6 December 2010, live from Tate Britain on Channel 4 News.

Craig Garrett is the Commissioning Editor for Contemporary Art at Phaidon