Meet the artists: Turner Prize 2008 shortlist
Runa Islam
Who? Bangladesh-born Islam, who studied in Amsterdam and at the Royal College of Art in London, is a visual artist and avant-garde film fanatic. Islam’s early works were often inspired by famous scenes from the genre: in Scale 1/16 inch = 1 foot, she recreates the infamous Gateshead car park featured in the Michael Caine thriller, Get Carter. These days, she often focuses on a single motif, such as a woman distractedly spinning a ring in Dead Time, or a group of rickshaw drivers instructed by the artist to sit and do nothing in First Day of Spring.
Nominated because... she creates closely choreographed films with open ended narratives that are analytical and emotionally charged (says the Tate).
For example: In Be The First To See What You See As You See It, a woman in white wanders around a gallery space of fragile porcelain pieces on plinths... and casually topples them onto the floor. Smash.
What to say: “Islam creates conceptually based works in which the aesthetics and ethics of filmmaking are revealed through each work’s formation and installation. Employing open-ended or deliberately counter narrative structures and drawing on techniques partly informed by avant-garde cinema to displace space and time, Islam’s works manage to be at once analytical and emotionally charged, formal and socially relevant.”
What not to say: “I dropped a plate while I was doing the washing up last night. Where’s my £25,000?”
Mark Leckey
Who? Leckey, born in Birkenhead, is reportedly something of a modern day dandy. A graduate of Newcastle Polytechnic, he combines sculpture, film, sound and performance in his work, which draws heavily on contemporary culture. Leckey’s breakthrough film, Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore, is a fast-paced journey through youth, fashion, music and hedonstic excess that traces the history of underground dance culture in the UK.
Nominated because... with wit and originality, he continues to find new genres through which to communicate his fascination with contemporary culture (says the Tate).
For example: Resident, a performance lecture and installation, featured several stars of popular culture, including the Simpsons. Images of Marge Simpson walking out of the cinema were spliced with the artist wearing a Simpsons mask. Leckey also used Disney characters and clips from Titanic, but interpreted Leonardo DiCaprio as a time traveller in a sci-fi movie.
What to say: “Visually seductive yet driven by a homespun aesthetic, Leckey’s wide ranging practice is underpinned by a highly subjective examination, appropriation and reworking of pre-existing images. Forming the basis of video, installation, sound sculpture or live performance, Leckey’s sources act as springboards to explore aspects of contemporary culture; to signify moments of identification or desire as well as to critically explore the visceral, material qualities of images themselves.”
What not to say: “Are Walt Disney’s lawyers aware of this?”
Goshka Macuga
Who? Macuga, from Poland, creates carefully staged installations described as “cultural archaeology.” She studied in Warsaw and at Central St Martin’s School of Art and Goldsmith’s College, both in London, and counts German gothic film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919) among her influences.
Nominated because... enacting a form of cultural archaeology, she enlists the collaboration of artists past and present in dramatic environments that suggest new narratives and associations (says the Tate).
For example: Picture Room recreated a series of folding panels designed by the 19th century architect and collector Sir John Soane, on which Macuga hung work by 30 of her contemporaries, uniting historical museum with modern gallery space.
What to say: “Macuga presents elaborate collages which juxtapose disparate collections of objects alongside her own artwork and artworks by other artists, films, recordings, and archive material. Her installations represent an ‘ideal museum’ through which new relationships and associations are created.”
What not to say: “I had a scrapbook once...”
Cathy Wilkes
Who? Belfast-born Wilkes, who studied in Belfast and Glasgow, uses shop mannequins in many of her surreal sculptures, which one judge described as “very strange, very poetic and complex.” Wilkes incorporates everyday items, such as widescreen TVs and pushchairs, into her work.
Nominated because... through rigorous, highly charged arrangements of commonplace objects and materials, she has developed an articulate and eloquent vocabulary that touches on issues of femininity and sexuality (says the Tate).
For example: In We Are Pro-Choice, a bowl with leftover bits of dried porridge sits at the feet of a mannequin perched on a toilet seat – a reference to Walter Sickert’s 1927 painting Lazarus Breaks His Fast. The porridge is the first meal after resurrection.
What to say: “Wilkes’s trajectory as an artist is characterised by the creation of a slowly emerging, distinctively personal vocabulary of sculptures and paintings, which the artist makes and re-makes in evolving assemblages and environments. At the heart of this practice is a search for the associative meaning of objects, one which leads her beyond the physical world and yet relentlessly returns there.”
What not to say: “Are you sure that's porridge?”
by Laura Snook, Editor, MSN UK News
May 13 2008
