Turner Prize – Defining Art for the Next Generation
by Hannah B
This year’s competition winning entry takes the form of a large table with half the tabletop cut off at an angle leaving a portion of the grey supporting structure underneath exposed. At each end of the table integrated vertical supports rise up to support a transverse beam housing a fluorescent light. The light shines down onto the empty half table. A mobile of hanging angular shapes in drab blues, reds and yellows completes the piece.
The structure stands in a bare room with exposed wooden floorboards and white walls. Numerous white shades hanging from the ceiling create a diffuse lighting effect.
The considerable sum of £25,000 was handed over by the competition organisers amid much media hype creating, inevitably, an air of prestige and accomplishment surrounding this object and its maker.
This substantial financial pay out coupled with the media exposure (the Turner Prize is one of only a handful of instances per year where contemporary arts enters the mainstream) ensures the Turner Prize acts as a beacon, signalling what is currently most valued by high profile contemporary arts competitions and in doing so encouraging the next generation of aspiring artists to embrace these winning (literally) atheistic and conceptual approaches with ‘resonating’ works of their own.
The winning entry is in Gateshead until 8th of Jan if you want to spend some more time staring at it.
