Tate Britain Level 2
18 October 2005 – 22 January 2006
The Turner Prize 2005 exhibition, supported by Gordon’s gin, opens on 18 October at Tate Britain. It features work by the four shortlisted artists, Darren Almond, Gillian Carnegie, Jim Lambie and Simon Starling. The winner of the prize will be announced by Culture Minister, David Lammy, during a live broadcast of the award ceremony on Channel 4 on the evening of Monday 5 December. With Gordon’s support this year’s prize fund is £40,000 with £25,000 going to the winner and £5,000 each for the other shortlisted artists.
The winner will be decided by a jury whose members are: Louisa Buck, London correspondent, The Art Newspaper; Kate Bush, Head of Art Galleries, Barbican Centre; Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith, Art critic and Lecturer, Modern Irish Department, University College Dublin; Eckhard Schneider, Director, Kunsthaus Bregenz; Nicholas Serota, Director, Tate and Chairman of the Jury.
The shortlisted artists for the Turner Prize 2005 are:
Darren Almond who presents his intimate four-screen video installation If I Had You. The installation articulates the emotional longing and losses of the artist’s grandmother as she observes a lone pair of dancers in the famous Tower ballroom in Blackpool. Almond continues to explore the parameters of time and space and their physical and emotional effects on us. Addressing themes of nostalgia, love and memory the piece exposes human vulnerability in the face of time.
Gillian Carnegie who presents an installation of paintings covering a breadth of subjects and diversity of technique. Working in the traditional genres of landscape, still-life, portraiture and the nude, Carnegie investigates the materiality of the medium and provides a challenge to its established languages. Her darkly visceral Black Square paintings will be included in the display as well as previously unseen work.
Jim Lambie who will transform his room through a compelling new site specific installation. His striking floor piece using vinyl tape will respond to the unique architecture of the gallery. He will also show three new sculptural assemblages which, with characteristic ingenuity, combine diverse materials and resurrect found objects to evoke a range of associations.
Simon Starling who presents Shedboatshed (Mobile Architecture No.2), a circuitous project in which a wooden boathouse was transformed into a boat, paddled down the Rhine and remade as a boathouse. Starling raises ideas about nature, technology and economics to reveal hidden relationships and histories. He will also show Tabernas Desert Run, the improvised hydrogen-fuelled bicycle on which he crossed the Spanish desert and the botanical watercolour of a cactus he painted with the bicycle’s only waste product, water.
For the second year in their three-year sponsorship, the maker’s of Gordon’s gin is supporting a free audio guide to the exhibition, part of a series of initiatives which will look in detail at the path contemporary artists take when creating their work. Gordon’s and Tate have also created the ‘Judge For Yourself’ tour, showcasing elements of the 2005 Turner Prize at mainline train stations across the UK during November.