An artist who has said of himself, "I have a bad record with destroying things," has won this year's Turner prize.
Simon Starling is no provocateur. Nor was he a shock winner -- the bookies made him the even-money favorite. But none the less, it will come as no surprise to those who regard the Turner prize with disdain that the softly spoken, slightly geekish, rather skeletal figure of Starling has won £25,000 (US$43,000) for dismantling and assembling a wooden shed.
Starling, who was born in 1967, found it on the banks of the Rhine, took it apart, made parts of it into a boat, and used the vessel to carry the remaining parts of it downriver to Basle. It was then reassembled as a shed in a Swiss museum.
PHOTO: AP
The display of his work at the Turner prize exhibition at Tate Britain in London also includes a makeshift motorized bicycle, which Starling used to ride across the Tabernas desert in southern Spain.
It was powered by hydrogen in lightweight canisters that reacted with oxygen in the atmosphere to produce water as a byproduct. The artist used that in turn to paint a simple watercolor of a cactus he found en route. The watercolor is installed alongside the oversize, makeshift bike.
Starling calls his work a "physical manifestation of a thought process." According to Tate curator Rachel Tant. "He's interested in the creation of objects; he is a researcher, traveler, narrator. He looks at how things got to be the way they are and reasserts a human connection between processes we take for granted."
The prize was awarded on Monday by UK arts minister David Lammy, at a ceremony which one prominent artist referred to as a "school dinner for the British artworld." Lammy said of the prize: "Its true genius is that for a couple of days every year, everyone gets to be an expert, no matter what they think about art."
Traditionalists will be disappointed that the only painter (and, as it happens, the only woman) on the shortlist was denied the top prize. London-based Gillian Carnegie, an early bookies' favorite, apparently paints in an academic style, producing landscapes and portraits. But her works, though they look at first comfortingly old- fashioned, are often disturbing on second view.
Jim Lambie was the artist who many artworld insiders favored to win -- though one distinguished sculptor has dismissed him as a "glorified interior decorator." Whereas last year's Turner prize winner, Jeremy Deller, infuriated some by announcing that he could neither paint nor draw, Lambie has drawn criticism for saying he loved drawing and painting as an art student, but now prefers to stick vinyl tape on floors and make oversize versions of kitsch ornaments.
A gentle, banal piano melody accompanies the installation by Darren Almond, which, with its film of his grandmother watching the dancing in the ballroom at Blackpool and film of a gently bubbling fountain provide, is according to Tant, "a space where everybody can tap into their own memories."
Starling's work is an enjoyable, nomadic, shaggy-dog conceptualism, the trace of a very peculiar way of negotiating the world; but one which, in terms of contemporary art, is also an example of perfect product placement.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not
This Qing Dynasty trail takes hikers from renowned hot springs in the East Rift Valley, up to the top of the Coastal Mountain Range, and down to the Pacific Short vacations to eastern Taiwan often require choosing between the Rift Valley with its pineapple fields, rice paddies and broader range of amenities, or the less populated coastal route for its ocean scenery. For those who can’t decide, why not try both? The Antong Traversing Trail (安通越嶺道) provides just such an opportunity. Built 149 years ago, the trail linked up these two formerly isolated parts of the island by crossing over the Coastal Mountain Range. After decades of serving as a convenient path for local Amis, Han settlers, missionaries and smugglers, the trail fell into disuse once modern roadways were built
RSS