German-born artist Tomma Abts has become the first woman painter to win the controversial and ageist Turner Prize in its 15-year history.
The artist, who has lived in Britain for 12 years, beat video artist Phil Collins, poster artist Mark Titchner and sculptor Rebecca Warren.
The judges ( Nick Serota ) said the 38-year-old, who confines her paintings to an enthralling 19ins X 15ins trademark size, had produced “compelling images that reveal their complexity slowly over time”.
Artist Yoko Ono presented the £25,000 prize at London’s Tate Britain.
J. M. W. Turner
( Self portrait, 1799 )
J.M.W quite possibly turning in his grave at the floundering banality of works by the four shortlisted artists in this year’s ageist (under 50s only) Turner Prize. One of whom, Rebecca Warren, churns out sculpture such as this;
MP_6
Read the way these sterile homogenized hulks are unqualifiedly eulogized and given artistic credence in a way that only a clique of self-important cosied-up art toffs could..
The talking heads members of the Turner Prize 2006 jury.
( A guaranteed mutual schmooz club )
Lynn Barber, writer, The Observer
Margot Heller, Director, South London Gallery
Matthew Higgs, Director and Chief Curator, White Columns, New York
Andrew Renton, writer and Director of Curating, Goldsmiths College
Nicholas Serota, Director, Tate and Chairman of the Jury ( what the thin grey boss says, goes )
” Rebecca Warren.
For her exuberant sculptural installations as seen in her solo exhibitions at Matthew Marks Gallery, New York, and Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne, and for her contribution to the Tate Triennial 2006. Her works combine a wide range of sources with a strong formal awareness, injecting conventional materials with a sensual physicality to create something wholly new. ”
“Strong formal awareness” – no further elaboration on what might that mean.
Since when was night school pottery class lumpen grotesque “wholly new”?
Serota’s pompously entrenched ruling arts clique seem to excel in courting media controversy via cheap shot shock & bore stuff like Warren’s hideous spew, promoted to swell the Tate turnstile cashbox with the gullible public’s hard-earned.
Or, tipping an upstaging hat to the Stuckists, with the first female painter to have ever won, the abstract painter Tomma Abts was given the prize on the basis of works such as this. . .
Mehm, 2005
Quoting from the Tate website,
” . . .Through her intimate and compelling canvases, she builds on and enriches the language of abstract painting”
Compare that with A19 by L. Moholy-Nagy, painted 78 years previously.
It’s not easy to see what’s being “built on” and “enriched” in the abstract painting tradition…
M.St.M
links;
London Dada Quickview Flikr Stream 2005 – present
LONDON DADA 