This Year’s Turner Prize “Packs a Political Punch”

“This year’s Turner Prize exhibition is entirely devoted to the moving image with works by the four nominees all lovingly installed in black boxes at Tate Britain in London,” writes Lorena Muñoz-Alonso in an article for Artnet News.

“This is probably the most consistently brilliant Turner Prize exhibition I remember seeing. I left Tate Britain feeling not exhausted but mindblown by the quality, relevance, and poignancy of all the works included,” writes Muñoz-Alonso.

New Zealander Luke Willis Thompson “is showing three 35mm films that deal with issues of race and police brutality.”

“Cemetery of Uniforms and Liveries (2016) features two black-and-white portraits of young men related to women, Dorothy “Cherry” Groce and Joy Gardner, who were killed by police in their London homes,” reports Muñoz-Alonso.

Thompson’s second film Autoportrait (2017), which is the film that made the artist famous and which earned him his nomination, “shows Diamond Reynolds, who live-streamed via Facebook the fatal shooting of her boyfriend Philando Castile by a police officer during a traffic stop in Minnesota in 2016.”

Willis Thompson’s newest film is called _Human (2018). “It is a detailed study of a miniature house crafted in 1997 by the artist Donald Rodney with a fragment of his own skin precariously held together with cellophane and pins.”

“By immersing all his subjects in silence, only broken by the rickety noises of the projector, the New Zealand artist somehow equalizes all of them as muted objects, loaded with meaning, yes, but silenced nonetheless,” writes Muñoz-Alonso.

Forensic Architecture, Charlotte Prodger, and Naeem Mohaiemen’s film and digital works are also part of the exhibition. “The Turner Prize 2018 is on view from September 26 through January 6, 2019, Tate Britain, London. The winner will be announced on December 4.”

Article Source: Artnet News, Lorena Muñoz-Alonso, September 26, 2018
Image Source: Tate UK