2007 Turner Prize
Encyclopedia
This article is about the 2007 Turner Prize
for modern British art. It was the 22nd competition .
There were four nominees for the prize and the winner was Mark Wallinger
.
The nominees in alphabetical order were:
in advance of its time as European Capital of Culture
. It opened on 19 October 2007 and closed 13 January 2008 .
The Turner Prize is awarded for a show by the artist in the previous year . When nominees are told of their nomination they then prepare exhibits for the Turner Prize exhibition, often at short notice. As such, the Turner Prize exhibition may not feature the works for which the artist was initially nominated by the judges. However the Turner Prize exhibition tends to be the basis on which public and press judge the artist's worthiness for nomination.
The artist said:
The critics said:
The critics said:
The artist said:
The critics said:
Not exhibited but regarded as the major contribution to his Turner nomination and win:
The artist said:
He has said that the bear in Sleeper symbolises Berlin, the title Sleeper refers to Cold War spies, and that he was inspired by a film of a fairy tale about a prince turned into a bear he saw as a child .
The critics said:
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under the age of 50. Awarding the prize is organised by the Tate gallery and staged at Tate Britain. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicised...
for modern British art. It was the 22nd competition .
There were four nominees for the prize and the winner was Mark Wallinger
Mark Wallinger
Mark Wallinger is a British artist, best known for his sculpture for the empty fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, Ecce Homo , and State Britain , a recreation at Tate Britain of Brian Haw's protest display outside parliament. He won the Turner Prize in 2007...
.
The nominees in alphabetical order were:
- Zarina BhimjiZarina BhimjiZarina Bhimji is a Ugandan Asian photographer and film maker, who was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2007.-Life and work:...
- Born in UgandaUgandaUganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
,1963.
- Born in Uganda
- Nathan ColeyNathan ColeyNathan Coley is a contemporary British installation artist, who was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2007....
- Born in GlasgowGlasgowGlasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, 1967.
- Born in Glasgow
- Mike Nelson
- Born in LoughboroughLoughboroughLoughborough is a town within the Charnwood borough of Leicestershire, England. It is the seat of Charnwood Borough Council and is home to Loughborough University...
, 1967. This was Nelson's second nomination. He lost out to Martin CreedMartin CreedMartin Creed is an artist and musician. He won the Turner Prize in 2001 for Work No. 227: the lights going on and off, which was an empty room in which the lights went on and off.-Life and work :...
in 2001 .
- Born in Loughborough
- Mark WallingerMark WallingerMark Wallinger is a British artist, best known for his sculpture for the empty fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, Ecce Homo , and State Britain , a recreation at Tate Britain of Brian Haw's protest display outside parliament. He won the Turner Prize in 2007...
- Born in ChigwellChigwellChigwell is a civil parish and town in the Epping Forest district of Essex. It is located 11.6 miles north east of Charing Cross. It is served by two London Underground stations and has a London area code.-Etymology:According to P. H...
, 1959. This was Wallinger's second nomination. He lost out to Damien HirstDamien HirstDamien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...
in 1995.
- Born in Chigwell
Turner Prize exhibition 2007
The exhibition took place in LiverpoolLiverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
in advance of its time as European Capital of Culture
European Capital of Culture
The European Capital of Culture is a city designated by theEuropean Union for a period of one calendar year during which it organises a series of cultural events with a strong European dimension....
. It opened on 19 October 2007 and closed 13 January 2008 .
The Turner Prize is awarded for a show by the artist in the previous year . When nominees are told of their nomination they then prepare exhibits for the Turner Prize exhibition, often at short notice. As such, the Turner Prize exhibition may not feature the works for which the artist was initially nominated by the judges. However the Turner Prize exhibition tends to be the basis on which public and press judge the artist's worthiness for nomination.
Zarina Bhimji
Bhimji's exhibited works were chiefly photographs of Uganda from which she was expelled:- Waiting
- Video footage shot in a sisalSisalSisal is an agave that yields a stiff fibre traditionally used in making twine, rope and also dartboards. The term may refer either to the plant or the fibre, depending on context...
factory with the material fluttering in the wind .
- Video footage shot in a sisal
- Illegal Sleep
- A photograph of guns leaning against a wall .
- Your Sadness Is Drunk
- A photograph of some chickens outside a dilapidated building (see Guardian slideshow 2 below in external links).
- This Unhinged Her
- A photograph of some unmounted candelabras laying in an outbuilding (see Guardian slideshow 2 below in external links).
- No Border Crossing
- A photograph of bundles of papers (see Guardian slideshow 2 below in external links).
- Shadows and Disturbances
- A photograph of closed double doors in a dilapidated building .
- Echo
- A photograph of graffiti on a wall
- Breathless Love
- A photograph of some distant structures on the horizon of a barren landscape
- Ambivalence
- A photograph of the turquoise interior of a dilapidated building .
The artist said:
- "[my work attempts to] speak the unspeakable that wants to be spoken" .
The critics said:
- "My point is not that Bhimji’s work is shoddy, but that it is unoriginal." - The TimesThe TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
- "while her video work [...] has a lyrical beauty, the rather misty poeticism probably needs rather a lot of background explanation before it gets any profound message across." - The TimesThe TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
- "quiet observational detail that requires a different kind of exposure than can be had in the Turner prize." - The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
- "large colour photographs of faded and decrepit interiors present us with a kind of African Pompeii: a melancholy world empty of people, yet filled with their presence; dead, but unburied; ruined, yet lovely." - The TimesThe TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
- "full of atmosphere and formal beauty, but she has done this kind of thing before (in Uganda) and I see little development in this new body of work." - The TelegraphThe Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
- "sensitive, a little bit atmospheric, a little bit disquieting, but without any particular character [...] The photos are what any arty photographer doing "images of colonial legacy" would come up with." - The IndependentThe IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
Nathan Coley
Exhibited works included:- Camouflage Church
- Camouflage Mosque
- Untitled (Threshold Sculpture)
- Blocks of wood that visitors to his part of the exhibition had to step over.
- There Will Be No Miracles Here
- A sign written in lights saying the above .
- Hope and Glory
- A model house with “Hope” written on one wall and “Glory” on the other.
- Annihilated Confession
- Three pictures of confessional boxes sprayed over with black paint so as to hide the images.
The critics said:
- "[There Will Be No Miracles Here] is the best thing in Coley's show, which is otherwise crass." - The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
- "harsh, theoretical and dull." - The TimesThe TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
- "a miserable display [...] Coley's show was at best a misjudged aberration." - The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
- "If the Turner Prize were given on the basis of best-in-show, this year I'd give it to Coley hands down." - The TelegraphThe Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
- "He may well be the most boring artist in Britain. His work is so dull to look at that you swiftly turn to a print-out in search of an explanation – and find the work is wholly explained by its explanation but not made the slightest bit more interesting." - The IndependentThe IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
Mike Nelson
Pieces exhibited included:- Double coop displacement
- Artwork made of wood and chicken wire .
- Amnesiac Shrine, or The Misplacement (a Futurological Fable): Mirrored Cubes - Inverted - With the Reflection of an Inner Psyche as Represented by a Metaphorical Landscape
- A shrine to bikers ("The Amnesiacs"), veterans of the first Gulf War. First one walks past a fake bonfire made of cut up traffic cones and wood. Then there are four cubes with openings in them. When one looks inside there is a vista of tiny lights .
The artist said:
- "The Amnesiacs started off as a way of coping with all the heavy theoretical stuff that I had absorbed in the Eighties. I basically created this narrative structure for myself: the fictional bikers who made the work. I had to apply the mentality of the Amnesiacs to the making of the work. Then a good friend died suddenly, and in my grief I turned them into something else, this gang of amnesiac bikers who build shrines through flashbacks."
The critics said:
- "will probably win this year" - The TimesThe TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
- "[Amnesiac Shrine] is one of the best things Nelson has ever done, but my guess is that it won't win the Turner." - The TelegraphThe Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
- "an artist with a real and rich imagination" - The IndependentThe IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
Mark Wallinger
Exhibited works included:- Sleeper
- A two hour film of Wallinger dressed in a bear suit wandering around the Neue NationalgalerieNeue NationalgalerieNeue Nationalgalerie at the Kulturforum is a museum for modern art in Berlin, with its main focus on the early 20th century. It is part of the Nationalgalerie of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin...
in BerlinBerlinBerlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
at night .
- A two hour film of Wallinger dressed in a bear suit wandering around the Neue Nationalgalerie
Not exhibited but regarded as the major contribution to his Turner nomination and win:
- State Britain
- A recreation of Brian HawBrian HawBrian William Haw was an English protester and peace campaigner who lived for almost ten years in a camp in London's Parliament Square from 2001, in a protest against UK and US foreign policy...
's demonstration encampment in Parliament SquareParliament SquareParliament Square is a square outside the northwest end of the Palace of Westminster in London. It features a large open green area in the middle, with a group of trees to its west. It contains statues of famous statesmen and is the scene of rallies and protests, as well as being a tourist...
against the Iraq War . The piece had resonance when displayed in London's Tate BritainTate BritainTate Britain is an art gallery situated on Millbank in London, and part of the Tate gallery network in Britain, with Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is the oldest gallery in the network, opening in 1897. It houses a substantial collection of the works of J. M. W. Turner.-History:It...
as it was placed just outside the protest exclusion zone surrounding parliamentParliament of the United KingdomThe Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
. Since this would have been lost by showing at Tate Liverpool the piece was not used.
- A recreation of Brian Haw
The artist said:
He has said that the bear in Sleeper symbolises Berlin, the title Sleeper refers to Cold War spies, and that he was inspired by a film of a fairy tale about a prince turned into a bear he saw as a child .
The critics said:
- "boring and unworthy." - The TimesThe TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
- "should be the winner" - The TimesThe TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
- "BungleBungle (Rainbow)Bungle is a character in the British children's television series Rainbow. He is a large brown furry bear and is played by various actors, but chiefly Stanley Bates...
wins the £25,000 Turner" - The SunThe Sun (newspaper)The Sun is a daily national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation. Sister editions are published in Glasgow and Dublin... - "I can't think of a better winner, nor of works more deserving of a wide audience." - The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
- [referring to Sleeper] "Good artists sometimes make bad art, and that's the case here." - The TelegraphThe Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
- "[Sleeper is] a transfixing piece of silent theatre" - The IndependentThe IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
Official site
Online slideshows
Artist videos at the Tate
These videos were conducted around the time of the nominations.Further video
- 3 Minute Wonder: Turner Prize 2007: Zarina Bhimji from Channel 4Channel 4Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
. - Exhibition tour from The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
.
YouTube
- Mark Wallinger on State Britain, 2007
- The artist talks at length about his recreation of Brian Haw's protest.
- Iraq War protest gets top Turner Prize art award
- News clip from ITN showing announcement of winner and Wallinger's acceptance speech.