The 2017 Turner Prize, Ferens Art Gallery
The Turner Prize, one of the world’s most renowned art prizes, is awarded annually by Tate to an artist born, living or working in Britain who has exhibited an outstanding exhibition or public presentation of their work anywhere in the world in the previous year. The four shortlisted artists for 2017 will exhibit their work at Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, from September with the overall winner announced in early December. Through genres such as portraiture, landscape and still life, the four artists explore how art is able to respond to political and social upheaval. The shortlisted artists for the Turner Prize 2017 are:
- Hurvin Anderson
- Andrea Büttner
- Lubaina Himid
- Rosalind Nashashibi
Hurvin’s vibrant paintings draw on the genres of still-life, landscape and portraiture to explore the way community and identity can be represented. Born in Birmingham to Jamaican parents, Anderson’s practice touches upon his Jamaican heritage as well as referencing wider art history. Repeated images such as the interior of barbershops appear throughout his paintings as a place synonymous with enterprise, affirmation and community for many Afro-Caribbean migrants. His work pays homage to this cultural history and explores themes of memory, identity and nationhood.
Andrea’s diverse practice encompasses printmaking, sculpture, painting, film and collaborative projects. Her subjects are equally broad ranging, exploring topics including botany, Catholicism, philosophy and art history. She often references other artists and thinkers including HAP Grieshaber, Immanuel Kant, Gwen John, Martin Kippenberger, Dieter Roth and Simone Weil. Büttner was first celebrated for her bold use of what is often seen as unfashionable media, namely woodcut and glass painting. Ideas of shame, vulnerability, poverty and embarrassment run throughout her work, countering the romantic and heroic nature associated with much artistic practice.
Lubaina makes paintings, prints, drawings and installations which celebrate Black creativity and the people of the African diaspora while challenging institutional invisibility. She references the slave industry and its legacies, and addresses the hidden and neglected cultural contribution made by real but forgotten people. In Naming the Money 2014, 100 cut-out life size figures depict Black servants and labourers who Himid individualises, giving each of them a name and story to work against the sense of the powerless mass. She often takes her paintings off the gallery wall so that her images become objects that surround the viewer. Whether working on Guardian newspapers or directly onto porcelain tableware, Himid continually subjects painting to the material of everyday life in order to explore Black identity.
Rosalind works primarily in film and also makes paintings and prints. Her films use the camera as an eye to convey moments and events, merging everyday observations with fantastical and mythological elements. The films are often meditative and sensuous and utilise an array of filmic conventions. In works such as Electrical Gaza 2015, Nashashibi combines her observations of domestic life in Gaza with animated sequences to reflect on issues of community. Images of families and friends engaged in everyday activities are punctuated with stark reminders of the local political conditions, while physical and imagined borders amplify the sense of geographical isolation.
Since it was established in 1984 the Turner Prize has become one of the most prestigious international visual arts awards and has both reflected and contributed to a growing public awareness and interest in contemporary art.
The members of the Turner Prize 2017 jury are Dan Fox, Co-Editor at Frieze, Martin Herbert, art critic, Emily Pethick, Director, Showroom and Mason Leaver-Yap, Walker Art Center’s Bentson Scholar of Moving Image in Minneapolis, and Associate Curator at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin
The jury is chaired by Alex Farquharson, Director of Tate Britain.
Ferens Art Gallery opening times are Monday – Wednesday 10am to 5pm, Thursday 10am to 7.30pm, Friday – Saturday 10am to 5pm and Sunday 11am to 4.30pm.
