While the jury is still out on the 2010 Turner Prize — and will be until the winner is named December 6 — the four nominees for this year’s award have just been announced: painter Dexter Dalwood, painter/sculptor Angela de la Cruz, filmmakers Kodwo Eshun and Anjalika Sagar of the Otolith Group, and sound artist Susan Philipsz.
The British press began chiming in soon after the shortlist was released. The Guardian called the selection “half-baked” and labeled Dalwood’s nomination “ the real low-point,” while praising Susan Philipsz and Angela de la Cruz as “worthy contenders.” Meanwhile, the Independent and the Telegraph dubbed Philipsz a “supermarket singer” because of a project she did at a Tesco store.
Although no one seemed to know enough about De la Cruz and the Otolith Group to dismiss them, the BBC said the overall selection was “sensible rather than shocking,” while the Times declared the prize “is now 26 years old and looking more conventional than it did in its hedonistic teenage years,” as well as that “the 2010 winner will not be a radical new talent.”
The prestigious £25,000 ($38,000) prize celebrates new developments in contemporary art. The artists have to be British or live and work in Britain and must be under 50 years old. They are nominated for an outstanding presentation of their work in the past year and honored by an exhibition, which goes on view October 4, at Tate Britain.
Dexter Dalwood paints places he has never seen. This is his 2001 work Hendrix's Last Basement
Stuck 2010, by Angela De La Cruz
The Otolith Group has been shortlisted for A Long Time Between Suns (part I), 2009
Susan Philipsz has been shortlisted for the Turner Prize for Lowlands, an installation at Glasgow International Airport