A Turner Prize committed to current issues announces its nominees

Tate of Liverpool announced the shortlist for the 2022 Turner Prize on Tuesday: Heather Phillipson, Ingrid Pollard, Veronica Ryan and Sin Wai Kin. Before knowing the name of the winner, who will be announced next December at a ceremony that will take place in Liverpool, the work of the four finalists will be exhibited at the art gallery's headquarters in Liverpool between October 20 and March 19, 2023. The prize, established in 1984, is named after the British painter Turner, the winner receives £ 25.000 while the final three receive £10,000.

Alex Farquharson, director of Tate Britain and co-chair of the Turner Prize jury, wanted to highlight the opening of museums and galleries in May 2021 following closures due to the Covid pandemic. “Art has provided much-needed pleasure and escape this past year, but it has also helped us reconnect with each other and the world around us, as exemplified by the practices of the four selected artists,” he commented.

The director of Tate Liverpool, Helen Legg, was excited to be able to present the work of the four candidates in the art gallery she runs: “The jury has been traveling across the country taking advantage of the easing of confinement to appreciate the explosion of creativity resulting from pandemic. According to Legg, the result provides a diverse group of artists, each with a unique vision, who “impressed the judges with the intensity of their presentations, while also addressing important issues facing our society today.”

Heather Phillipson

Nominated for her solo exhibition #1 rupture: burn the bitten peach at Tate Britain (London), and his commission for the Fourth Plinth, the end, the work of Heather Phillipson (London, 1978) combines very different materials, media and gestures in what she calls “quantum thought experiments”. Through multiple and unexpected combinations, the artist evokes absurd and complex systems. His work often carries a sense of menace, a suggestion that “received ideas, images, and the systems that sustain them may be on the verge of collapse.” The jury highlighted the bold and sophisticated way in which Phillipson brings together absurdity, tragedy and imagination to test urgent and complex ideas.

Ingrid Pollard

The artist was nominated for her solo exhibition Slowly rotating carbon, the first to span his entire career, at MK Gallery in Milton Keynes. Ingrid Pollard (Georgetown, Guyana, 1953), who works primarily in photography but also in sculpture, film and sound, questions our relationship with the natural world and questions ideas such as what is British, race, sexuality, the human body, migration and our relationship with the natural and the iconography of the photographic landscape. The jury praised a work that for decades uncovered stories that, at first glance, seemed hidden. Furthermore, he wanted to highlight new developments in his recent work, especially a new series of kinetic anthropomorphic sculptures based on research into the moving figure in space.

Veronica Ryan

Your individual exhibition Along a spectrum on Spike Island in Bristol and her Hackney Windrush Art Commission in London led to her being shortlisted for the UK's most prestigious art award. Veronica Ryan (Plymouth, 1956) creates sculptural objects and installations using containers, compartments, and combinations of natural and manufactured forms to reference displacement, fragmentation, and alienation. The jury highlights the work carried out during a residency on Spike Island, in which it explores ecology, history and displacement, as well as the psychological impact of the pandemic. Furthermore, he drew attention to the sensuality and delicacy of the sculptures he presented both in the gallery and for public commission in Hackney.

no wai relatives

Sin Wai Kin (Toronto, 1991) participated in the British Art Show 9 and presented a solo exhibition at Blindspot Gallery, Frieze London. The artist brings fantasy to life through storytelling, moving images, writing and printing. Drawing on her own experience between binary categories, her work draws on fictional narratives to describe realities of desire, identification, and consciousness. The jury evaluated your film Dream of Wholeness in Parts where traditional Chinese philosophy and drama intersect with contemporary drag, music and poetry. His work, which stands out for its transgressive nature, focuses on the use of speculative fiction within representation, questions idealized images, constructed categories and binary conceptions of consciousness.

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