Space & Power: The Turner Prize comes to Eastbourne's Towner Gallery
What can the nominees for one of art's most significant awards tell us about the state of contemporary British art?
By
Adam Wells
September 28, 2023
In its thirty-eight-year history, as illustrated on a timeline on the ground floor of Eastbourne's Towner Gallery, the annual Turner Prize has frequently served as something of a cultural barometer in the UK; this much is evidenced by its name, derived from the contemporarily experimental works of J.M.W. Turner, succinctly setting out the prize’s aim to spotlight the artists at the forefront of creative development in all its forms. This year’s nominees and the accompanying exhibition are no exception to this: while each of its entrants (Jesse Darling, Ghislaine Leung, Rory Pilgrim and Barbara Walker) may cover similar topics - namely the climate crisis, the lingering effects of Covid and Brexit, and contemporary power structures - they each do in a series of art forms and from uniquely differing angles.
Walking around the exhibition of the four artists’ works - showing now in Towner Eastbourne as part of the gallery's centenary celebration and city-wide ‘Eastbourne Alive’ event - one shared approach becomes immediately clear. Each of the nominees, in their own way, play with the gallery space itself in their interrogations of their chosen themes. The colossal Big Dipper by Jesse Darling bursts through the wall of the room itself, as if a direct continuation of his Gravity Road, displayed in Kunstverein Freiburg in 2020. Here, the metal of a traditional mine train track bends and contorts itself across half the space, transforming into a roller coaster as it goes. The sight of the track and the backbreaking labour it implies transforming into a figure of entertainment and excitement, presented in such a self-aware manner, neatly serves as an illustration of a phenomenon all-too-often seen in the art world, that being the tendency to romanticise class struggles as a spectacle to be considered rather than an issue to be addressed.
In a moment of fun interplay between artists, Darling’s sculpture Corpus (Fortress) frames the doorway into Barbara Walker’s presentation Burden of Proof. First displayed at Sharjah Biennial 15, Walker’s monumental portraits are etched directly onto the gallery wall in charcoal. Depicting individuals and families affected by the Windrush scandal, such a presentation carries with it implications of permanence and a fixed home, serving as a pointed reaction to the effects of the scandal in another inventive use of the gallery space itself.
Elsewhere, Rory Pilgrim’s film RAFTS blends poetry, documentary, music, animation, and dance to investigate similar cultural anxieties in the wake of Covid and the climate crisis, building towards an ode to the very act of creativity, the miracle of support structures, and the intersections therebetween. The film itself is screened above a broad wooden structure, with carvings including the word ‘courage’, below which a small pile of stones has been arranged on a matt; as it progresses, RAFTS interacts with the very space it is shown in, with ambient lighting shifting for certain segments, and the centrality of Eddie Paggett’s piece titled Sphere emphasised by its framed presence directly next to the screen.
The ‘score-based artworks’ of Ghislaine Leung, meanwhile, not only experiment with the space but interrogate the very act of creating art in today’s culture. A baby monitor attached to the wall offering a live broadcast to the art store nearby and a wall painting depicting the hours the artist spent in the studio allows the installation to illustrate its own production, while Leung’s work Fountains - an industrial-looking water fountain - is loud enough to drown out any attempts to talk to fellow gallery-goers about the works on display. Its presence on the ground floor of the gallery is notable too, with a full-length window not only giving a view to a city car park but simultaneously giving those in the car park a clear view into the gallery - a democratisation of art on par with Eastbourne Live, a display of public artworks on display as part of the city’s celebration of Towner’s centenary.
The Turner Prize has often courted controversy, frequently utilised as a punchline or implied by traditionalists to be an indictment on the state of contemporary art. Already this year’s nominees have proven divisive, with various publications falling over each other to declare who they think should be the winner. And while, from a certain perspective, the fixation on art’s production and the gallery space itself could be uncharitably characterised as self-indulgent, to do so would be to miss the point of the prize. The actual winner (to be announced on 5th December) is almost immaterial, as demonstrated by the choice to award all four nominees the prize in 2019; far more important is the very existence of a cultural event celebrating artistic experimentation in all its forms. That the yearly exhibition funds such experimentation and encourages gallery visits - particularly to locally-focused galleries, often outside London - only further serves to justify the award’s existence.
The Turner Prize 2023 is showing at Towner Eastbourne until 14th April 2024. The winner will be announced on 5th December.
In its thirty-eight-year history, as illustrated on a timeline on the ground floor of Eastbourne's Towner Gallery, the annual Turner Prize has frequently served as something of a cultural barometer in the UK; this much is evidenced by its name, derived from the contemporarily experimental works of J.M.W. Turner, succinctly setting out the prize’s aim to spotlight the artists at the forefront of creative development in all its forms. This year’s nominees and the accompanying exhibition are no exception to this: while each of its entrants (Jesse Darling, Ghislaine Leung, Rory Pilgrim and Barbara Walker) may cover similar topics - namely the climate crisis, the lingering effects of Covid and Brexit, and contemporary power structures - they each do in a series of art forms and from uniquely differing angles.
Walking around the exhibition of the four artists’ works - showing now in Towner Eastbourne as part of the gallery's centenary celebration and city-wide ‘Eastbourne Alive’ event - one shared approach becomes immediately clear. Each of the nominees, in their own way, play with the gallery space itself in their interrogations of their chosen themes. The colossal Big Dipper by Jesse Darling bursts through the wall of the room itself, as if a direct continuation of his Gravity Road, displayed in Kunstverein Freiburg in 2020. Here, the metal of a traditional mine train track bends and contorts itself across half the space, transforming into a roller coaster as it goes. The sight of the track and the backbreaking labour it implies transforming into a figure of entertainment and excitement, presented in such a self-aware manner, neatly serves as an illustration of a phenomenon all-too-often seen in the art world, that being the tendency to romanticise class struggles as a spectacle to be considered rather than an issue to be addressed.
In a moment of fun interplay between artists, Darling’s sculpture Corpus (Fortress) frames the doorway into Barbara Walker’s presentation Burden of Proof. First displayed at Sharjah Biennial 15, Walker’s monumental portraits are etched directly onto the gallery wall in charcoal. Depicting individuals and families affected by the Windrush scandal, such a presentation carries with it implications of permanence and a fixed home, serving as a pointed reaction to the effects of the scandal in another inventive use of the gallery space itself.
Elsewhere, Rory Pilgrim’s film RAFTS blends poetry, documentary, music, animation, and dance to investigate similar cultural anxieties in the wake of Covid and the climate crisis, building towards an ode to the very act of creativity, the miracle of support structures, and the intersections therebetween. The film itself is screened above a broad wooden structure, with carvings including the word ‘courage’, below which a small pile of stones has been arranged on a matt; as it progresses, RAFTS interacts with the very space it is shown in, with ambient lighting shifting for certain segments, and the centrality of Eddie Paggett’s piece titled Sphere emphasised by its framed presence directly next to the screen.
The ‘score-based artworks’ of Ghislaine Leung, meanwhile, not only experiment with the space but interrogate the very act of creating art in today’s culture. A baby monitor attached to the wall offering a live broadcast to the art store nearby and a wall painting depicting the hours the artist spent in the studio allows the installation to illustrate its own production, while Leung’s work Fountains - an industrial-looking water fountain - is loud enough to drown out any attempts to talk to fellow gallery-goers about the works on display. Its presence on the ground floor of the gallery is notable too, with a full-length window not only giving a view to a city car park but simultaneously giving those in the car park a clear view into the gallery - a democratisation of art on par with Eastbourne Live, a display of public artworks on display as part of the city’s celebration of Towner’s centenary.
The Turner Prize has often courted controversy, frequently utilised as a punchline or implied by traditionalists to be an indictment on the state of contemporary art. Already this year’s nominees have proven divisive, with various publications falling over each other to declare who they think should be the winner. And while, from a certain perspective, the fixation on art’s production and the gallery space itself could be uncharitably characterised as self-indulgent, to do so would be to miss the point of the prize. The actual winner (to be announced on 5th December) is almost immaterial, as demonstrated by the choice to award all four nominees the prize in 2019; far more important is the very existence of a cultural event celebrating artistic experimentation in all its forms. That the yearly exhibition funds such experimentation and encourages gallery visits - particularly to locally-focused galleries, often outside London - only further serves to justify the award’s existence.
The Turner Prize 2023 is showing at Towner Eastbourne until 14th April 2024. The winner will be announced on 5th December.
In its thirty-eight-year history, as illustrated on a timeline on the ground floor of Eastbourne's Towner Gallery, the annual Turner Prize has frequently served as something of a cultural barometer in the UK; this much is evidenced by its name, derived from the contemporarily experimental works of J.M.W. Turner, succinctly setting out the prize’s aim to spotlight the artists at the forefront of creative development in all its forms. This year’s nominees and the accompanying exhibition are no exception to this: while each of its entrants (Jesse Darling, Ghislaine Leung, Rory Pilgrim and Barbara Walker) may cover similar topics - namely the climate crisis, the lingering effects of Covid and Brexit, and contemporary power structures - they each do in a series of art forms and from uniquely differing angles.
Walking around the exhibition of the four artists’ works - showing now in Towner Eastbourne as part of the gallery's centenary celebration and city-wide ‘Eastbourne Alive’ event - one shared approach becomes immediately clear. Each of the nominees, in their own way, play with the gallery space itself in their interrogations of their chosen themes. The colossal Big Dipper by Jesse Darling bursts through the wall of the room itself, as if a direct continuation of his Gravity Road, displayed in Kunstverein Freiburg in 2020. Here, the metal of a traditional mine train track bends and contorts itself across half the space, transforming into a roller coaster as it goes. The sight of the track and the backbreaking labour it implies transforming into a figure of entertainment and excitement, presented in such a self-aware manner, neatly serves as an illustration of a phenomenon all-too-often seen in the art world, that being the tendency to romanticise class struggles as a spectacle to be considered rather than an issue to be addressed.
In a moment of fun interplay between artists, Darling’s sculpture Corpus (Fortress) frames the doorway into Barbara Walker’s presentation Burden of Proof. First displayed at Sharjah Biennial 15, Walker’s monumental portraits are etched directly onto the gallery wall in charcoal. Depicting individuals and families affected by the Windrush scandal, such a presentation carries with it implications of permanence and a fixed home, serving as a pointed reaction to the effects of the scandal in another inventive use of the gallery space itself.
Elsewhere, Rory Pilgrim’s film RAFTS blends poetry, documentary, music, animation, and dance to investigate similar cultural anxieties in the wake of Covid and the climate crisis, building towards an ode to the very act of creativity, the miracle of support structures, and the intersections therebetween. The film itself is screened above a broad wooden structure, with carvings including the word ‘courage’, below which a small pile of stones has been arranged on a matt; as it progresses, RAFTS interacts with the very space it is shown in, with ambient lighting shifting for certain segments, and the centrality of Eddie Paggett’s piece titled Sphere emphasised by its framed presence directly next to the screen.
The ‘score-based artworks’ of Ghislaine Leung, meanwhile, not only experiment with the space but interrogate the very act of creating art in today’s culture. A baby monitor attached to the wall offering a live broadcast to the art store nearby and a wall painting depicting the hours the artist spent in the studio allows the installation to illustrate its own production, while Leung’s work Fountains - an industrial-looking water fountain - is loud enough to drown out any attempts to talk to fellow gallery-goers about the works on display. Its presence on the ground floor of the gallery is notable too, with a full-length window not only giving a view to a city car park but simultaneously giving those in the car park a clear view into the gallery - a democratisation of art on par with Eastbourne Live, a display of public artworks on display as part of the city’s celebration of Towner’s centenary.
The Turner Prize has often courted controversy, frequently utilised as a punchline or implied by traditionalists to be an indictment on the state of contemporary art. Already this year’s nominees have proven divisive, with various publications falling over each other to declare who they think should be the winner. And while, from a certain perspective, the fixation on art’s production and the gallery space itself could be uncharitably characterised as self-indulgent, to do so would be to miss the point of the prize. The actual winner (to be announced on 5th December) is almost immaterial, as demonstrated by the choice to award all four nominees the prize in 2019; far more important is the very existence of a cultural event celebrating artistic experimentation in all its forms. That the yearly exhibition funds such experimentation and encourages gallery visits - particularly to locally-focused galleries, often outside London - only further serves to justify the award’s existence.
The Turner Prize 2023 is showing at Towner Eastbourne until 14th April 2024. The winner will be announced on 5th December.
In its thirty-eight-year history, as illustrated on a timeline on the ground floor of Eastbourne's Towner Gallery, the annual Turner Prize has frequently served as something of a cultural barometer in the UK; this much is evidenced by its name, derived from the contemporarily experimental works of J.M.W. Turner, succinctly setting out the prize’s aim to spotlight the artists at the forefront of creative development in all its forms. This year’s nominees and the accompanying exhibition are no exception to this: while each of its entrants (Jesse Darling, Ghislaine Leung, Rory Pilgrim and Barbara Walker) may cover similar topics - namely the climate crisis, the lingering effects of Covid and Brexit, and contemporary power structures - they each do in a series of art forms and from uniquely differing angles.
Walking around the exhibition of the four artists’ works - showing now in Towner Eastbourne as part of the gallery's centenary celebration and city-wide ‘Eastbourne Alive’ event - one shared approach becomes immediately clear. Each of the nominees, in their own way, play with the gallery space itself in their interrogations of their chosen themes. The colossal Big Dipper by Jesse Darling bursts through the wall of the room itself, as if a direct continuation of his Gravity Road, displayed in Kunstverein Freiburg in 2020. Here, the metal of a traditional mine train track bends and contorts itself across half the space, transforming into a roller coaster as it goes. The sight of the track and the backbreaking labour it implies transforming into a figure of entertainment and excitement, presented in such a self-aware manner, neatly serves as an illustration of a phenomenon all-too-often seen in the art world, that being the tendency to romanticise class struggles as a spectacle to be considered rather than an issue to be addressed.
In a moment of fun interplay between artists, Darling’s sculpture Corpus (Fortress) frames the doorway into Barbara Walker’s presentation Burden of Proof. First displayed at Sharjah Biennial 15, Walker’s monumental portraits are etched directly onto the gallery wall in charcoal. Depicting individuals and families affected by the Windrush scandal, such a presentation carries with it implications of permanence and a fixed home, serving as a pointed reaction to the effects of the scandal in another inventive use of the gallery space itself.
Elsewhere, Rory Pilgrim’s film RAFTS blends poetry, documentary, music, animation, and dance to investigate similar cultural anxieties in the wake of Covid and the climate crisis, building towards an ode to the very act of creativity, the miracle of support structures, and the intersections therebetween. The film itself is screened above a broad wooden structure, with carvings including the word ‘courage’, below which a small pile of stones has been arranged on a matt; as it progresses, RAFTS interacts with the very space it is shown in, with ambient lighting shifting for certain segments, and the centrality of Eddie Paggett’s piece titled Sphere emphasised by its framed presence directly next to the screen.
The ‘score-based artworks’ of Ghislaine Leung, meanwhile, not only experiment with the space but interrogate the very act of creating art in today’s culture. A baby monitor attached to the wall offering a live broadcast to the art store nearby and a wall painting depicting the hours the artist spent in the studio allows the installation to illustrate its own production, while Leung’s work Fountains - an industrial-looking water fountain - is loud enough to drown out any attempts to talk to fellow gallery-goers about the works on display. Its presence on the ground floor of the gallery is notable too, with a full-length window not only giving a view to a city car park but simultaneously giving those in the car park a clear view into the gallery - a democratisation of art on par with Eastbourne Live, a display of public artworks on display as part of the city’s celebration of Towner’s centenary.
The Turner Prize has often courted controversy, frequently utilised as a punchline or implied by traditionalists to be an indictment on the state of contemporary art. Already this year’s nominees have proven divisive, with various publications falling over each other to declare who they think should be the winner. And while, from a certain perspective, the fixation on art’s production and the gallery space itself could be uncharitably characterised as self-indulgent, to do so would be to miss the point of the prize. The actual winner (to be announced on 5th December) is almost immaterial, as demonstrated by the choice to award all four nominees the prize in 2019; far more important is the very existence of a cultural event celebrating artistic experimentation in all its forms. That the yearly exhibition funds such experimentation and encourages gallery visits - particularly to locally-focused galleries, often outside London - only further serves to justify the award’s existence.
The Turner Prize 2023 is showing at Towner Eastbourne until 14th April 2024. The winner will be announced on 5th December.
In its thirty-eight-year history, as illustrated on a timeline on the ground floor of Eastbourne's Towner Gallery, the annual Turner Prize has frequently served as something of a cultural barometer in the UK; this much is evidenced by its name, derived from the contemporarily experimental works of J.M.W. Turner, succinctly setting out the prize’s aim to spotlight the artists at the forefront of creative development in all its forms. This year’s nominees and the accompanying exhibition are no exception to this: while each of its entrants (Jesse Darling, Ghislaine Leung, Rory Pilgrim and Barbara Walker) may cover similar topics - namely the climate crisis, the lingering effects of Covid and Brexit, and contemporary power structures - they each do in a series of art forms and from uniquely differing angles.
Walking around the exhibition of the four artists’ works - showing now in Towner Eastbourne as part of the gallery's centenary celebration and city-wide ‘Eastbourne Alive’ event - one shared approach becomes immediately clear. Each of the nominees, in their own way, play with the gallery space itself in their interrogations of their chosen themes. The colossal Big Dipper by Jesse Darling bursts through the wall of the room itself, as if a direct continuation of his Gravity Road, displayed in Kunstverein Freiburg in 2020. Here, the metal of a traditional mine train track bends and contorts itself across half the space, transforming into a roller coaster as it goes. The sight of the track and the backbreaking labour it implies transforming into a figure of entertainment and excitement, presented in such a self-aware manner, neatly serves as an illustration of a phenomenon all-too-often seen in the art world, that being the tendency to romanticise class struggles as a spectacle to be considered rather than an issue to be addressed.
In a moment of fun interplay between artists, Darling’s sculpture Corpus (Fortress) frames the doorway into Barbara Walker’s presentation Burden of Proof. First displayed at Sharjah Biennial 15, Walker’s monumental portraits are etched directly onto the gallery wall in charcoal. Depicting individuals and families affected by the Windrush scandal, such a presentation carries with it implications of permanence and a fixed home, serving as a pointed reaction to the effects of the scandal in another inventive use of the gallery space itself.
Elsewhere, Rory Pilgrim’s film RAFTS blends poetry, documentary, music, animation, and dance to investigate similar cultural anxieties in the wake of Covid and the climate crisis, building towards an ode to the very act of creativity, the miracle of support structures, and the intersections therebetween. The film itself is screened above a broad wooden structure, with carvings including the word ‘courage’, below which a small pile of stones has been arranged on a matt; as it progresses, RAFTS interacts with the very space it is shown in, with ambient lighting shifting for certain segments, and the centrality of Eddie Paggett’s piece titled Sphere emphasised by its framed presence directly next to the screen.
The ‘score-based artworks’ of Ghislaine Leung, meanwhile, not only experiment with the space but interrogate the very act of creating art in today’s culture. A baby monitor attached to the wall offering a live broadcast to the art store nearby and a wall painting depicting the hours the artist spent in the studio allows the installation to illustrate its own production, while Leung’s work Fountains - an industrial-looking water fountain - is loud enough to drown out any attempts to talk to fellow gallery-goers about the works on display. Its presence on the ground floor of the gallery is notable too, with a full-length window not only giving a view to a city car park but simultaneously giving those in the car park a clear view into the gallery - a democratisation of art on par with Eastbourne Live, a display of public artworks on display as part of the city’s celebration of Towner’s centenary.
The Turner Prize has often courted controversy, frequently utilised as a punchline or implied by traditionalists to be an indictment on the state of contemporary art. Already this year’s nominees have proven divisive, with various publications falling over each other to declare who they think should be the winner. And while, from a certain perspective, the fixation on art’s production and the gallery space itself could be uncharitably characterised as self-indulgent, to do so would be to miss the point of the prize. The actual winner (to be announced on 5th December) is almost immaterial, as demonstrated by the choice to award all four nominees the prize in 2019; far more important is the very existence of a cultural event celebrating artistic experimentation in all its forms. That the yearly exhibition funds such experimentation and encourages gallery visits - particularly to locally-focused galleries, often outside London - only further serves to justify the award’s existence.
The Turner Prize 2023 is showing at Towner Eastbourne until 14th April 2024. The winner will be announced on 5th December.
In its thirty-eight-year history, as illustrated on a timeline on the ground floor of Eastbourne's Towner Gallery, the annual Turner Prize has frequently served as something of a cultural barometer in the UK; this much is evidenced by its name, derived from the contemporarily experimental works of J.M.W. Turner, succinctly setting out the prize’s aim to spotlight the artists at the forefront of creative development in all its forms. This year’s nominees and the accompanying exhibition are no exception to this: while each of its entrants (Jesse Darling, Ghislaine Leung, Rory Pilgrim and Barbara Walker) may cover similar topics - namely the climate crisis, the lingering effects of Covid and Brexit, and contemporary power structures - they each do in a series of art forms and from uniquely differing angles.
Walking around the exhibition of the four artists’ works - showing now in Towner Eastbourne as part of the gallery's centenary celebration and city-wide ‘Eastbourne Alive’ event - one shared approach becomes immediately clear. Each of the nominees, in their own way, play with the gallery space itself in their interrogations of their chosen themes. The colossal Big Dipper by Jesse Darling bursts through the wall of the room itself, as if a direct continuation of his Gravity Road, displayed in Kunstverein Freiburg in 2020. Here, the metal of a traditional mine train track bends and contorts itself across half the space, transforming into a roller coaster as it goes. The sight of the track and the backbreaking labour it implies transforming into a figure of entertainment and excitement, presented in such a self-aware manner, neatly serves as an illustration of a phenomenon all-too-often seen in the art world, that being the tendency to romanticise class struggles as a spectacle to be considered rather than an issue to be addressed.
In a moment of fun interplay between artists, Darling’s sculpture Corpus (Fortress) frames the doorway into Barbara Walker’s presentation Burden of Proof. First displayed at Sharjah Biennial 15, Walker’s monumental portraits are etched directly onto the gallery wall in charcoal. Depicting individuals and families affected by the Windrush scandal, such a presentation carries with it implications of permanence and a fixed home, serving as a pointed reaction to the effects of the scandal in another inventive use of the gallery space itself.
Elsewhere, Rory Pilgrim’s film RAFTS blends poetry, documentary, music, animation, and dance to investigate similar cultural anxieties in the wake of Covid and the climate crisis, building towards an ode to the very act of creativity, the miracle of support structures, and the intersections therebetween. The film itself is screened above a broad wooden structure, with carvings including the word ‘courage’, below which a small pile of stones has been arranged on a matt; as it progresses, RAFTS interacts with the very space it is shown in, with ambient lighting shifting for certain segments, and the centrality of Eddie Paggett’s piece titled Sphere emphasised by its framed presence directly next to the screen.
The ‘score-based artworks’ of Ghislaine Leung, meanwhile, not only experiment with the space but interrogate the very act of creating art in today’s culture. A baby monitor attached to the wall offering a live broadcast to the art store nearby and a wall painting depicting the hours the artist spent in the studio allows the installation to illustrate its own production, while Leung’s work Fountains - an industrial-looking water fountain - is loud enough to drown out any attempts to talk to fellow gallery-goers about the works on display. Its presence on the ground floor of the gallery is notable too, with a full-length window not only giving a view to a city car park but simultaneously giving those in the car park a clear view into the gallery - a democratisation of art on par with Eastbourne Live, a display of public artworks on display as part of the city’s celebration of Towner’s centenary.
The Turner Prize has often courted controversy, frequently utilised as a punchline or implied by traditionalists to be an indictment on the state of contemporary art. Already this year’s nominees have proven divisive, with various publications falling over each other to declare who they think should be the winner. And while, from a certain perspective, the fixation on art’s production and the gallery space itself could be uncharitably characterised as self-indulgent, to do so would be to miss the point of the prize. The actual winner (to be announced on 5th December) is almost immaterial, as demonstrated by the choice to award all four nominees the prize in 2019; far more important is the very existence of a cultural event celebrating artistic experimentation in all its forms. That the yearly exhibition funds such experimentation and encourages gallery visits - particularly to locally-focused galleries, often outside London - only further serves to justify the award’s existence.
The Turner Prize 2023 is showing at Towner Eastbourne until 14th April 2024. The winner will be announced on 5th December.
In its thirty-eight-year history, as illustrated on a timeline on the ground floor of Eastbourne's Towner Gallery, the annual Turner Prize has frequently served as something of a cultural barometer in the UK; this much is evidenced by its name, derived from the contemporarily experimental works of J.M.W. Turner, succinctly setting out the prize’s aim to spotlight the artists at the forefront of creative development in all its forms. This year’s nominees and the accompanying exhibition are no exception to this: while each of its entrants (Jesse Darling, Ghislaine Leung, Rory Pilgrim and Barbara Walker) may cover similar topics - namely the climate crisis, the lingering effects of Covid and Brexit, and contemporary power structures - they each do in a series of art forms and from uniquely differing angles.
Walking around the exhibition of the four artists’ works - showing now in Towner Eastbourne as part of the gallery's centenary celebration and city-wide ‘Eastbourne Alive’ event - one shared approach becomes immediately clear. Each of the nominees, in their own way, play with the gallery space itself in their interrogations of their chosen themes. The colossal Big Dipper by Jesse Darling bursts through the wall of the room itself, as if a direct continuation of his Gravity Road, displayed in Kunstverein Freiburg in 2020. Here, the metal of a traditional mine train track bends and contorts itself across half the space, transforming into a roller coaster as it goes. The sight of the track and the backbreaking labour it implies transforming into a figure of entertainment and excitement, presented in such a self-aware manner, neatly serves as an illustration of a phenomenon all-too-often seen in the art world, that being the tendency to romanticise class struggles as a spectacle to be considered rather than an issue to be addressed.
In a moment of fun interplay between artists, Darling’s sculpture Corpus (Fortress) frames the doorway into Barbara Walker’s presentation Burden of Proof. First displayed at Sharjah Biennial 15, Walker’s monumental portraits are etched directly onto the gallery wall in charcoal. Depicting individuals and families affected by the Windrush scandal, such a presentation carries with it implications of permanence and a fixed home, serving as a pointed reaction to the effects of the scandal in another inventive use of the gallery space itself.
Elsewhere, Rory Pilgrim’s film RAFTS blends poetry, documentary, music, animation, and dance to investigate similar cultural anxieties in the wake of Covid and the climate crisis, building towards an ode to the very act of creativity, the miracle of support structures, and the intersections therebetween. The film itself is screened above a broad wooden structure, with carvings including the word ‘courage’, below which a small pile of stones has been arranged on a matt; as it progresses, RAFTS interacts with the very space it is shown in, with ambient lighting shifting for certain segments, and the centrality of Eddie Paggett’s piece titled Sphere emphasised by its framed presence directly next to the screen.
The ‘score-based artworks’ of Ghislaine Leung, meanwhile, not only experiment with the space but interrogate the very act of creating art in today’s culture. A baby monitor attached to the wall offering a live broadcast to the art store nearby and a wall painting depicting the hours the artist spent in the studio allows the installation to illustrate its own production, while Leung’s work Fountains - an industrial-looking water fountain - is loud enough to drown out any attempts to talk to fellow gallery-goers about the works on display. Its presence on the ground floor of the gallery is notable too, with a full-length window not only giving a view to a city car park but simultaneously giving those in the car park a clear view into the gallery - a democratisation of art on par with Eastbourne Live, a display of public artworks on display as part of the city’s celebration of Towner’s centenary.
The Turner Prize has often courted controversy, frequently utilised as a punchline or implied by traditionalists to be an indictment on the state of contemporary art. Already this year’s nominees have proven divisive, with various publications falling over each other to declare who they think should be the winner. And while, from a certain perspective, the fixation on art’s production and the gallery space itself could be uncharitably characterised as self-indulgent, to do so would be to miss the point of the prize. The actual winner (to be announced on 5th December) is almost immaterial, as demonstrated by the choice to award all four nominees the prize in 2019; far more important is the very existence of a cultural event celebrating artistic experimentation in all its forms. That the yearly exhibition funds such experimentation and encourages gallery visits - particularly to locally-focused galleries, often outside London - only further serves to justify the award’s existence.
The Turner Prize 2023 is showing at Towner Eastbourne until 14th April 2024. The winner will be announced on 5th December.
In its thirty-eight-year history, as illustrated on a timeline on the ground floor of Eastbourne's Towner Gallery, the annual Turner Prize has frequently served as something of a cultural barometer in the UK; this much is evidenced by its name, derived from the contemporarily experimental works of J.M.W. Turner, succinctly setting out the prize’s aim to spotlight the artists at the forefront of creative development in all its forms. This year’s nominees and the accompanying exhibition are no exception to this: while each of its entrants (Jesse Darling, Ghislaine Leung, Rory Pilgrim and Barbara Walker) may cover similar topics - namely the climate crisis, the lingering effects of Covid and Brexit, and contemporary power structures - they each do in a series of art forms and from uniquely differing angles.
Walking around the exhibition of the four artists’ works - showing now in Towner Eastbourne as part of the gallery's centenary celebration and city-wide ‘Eastbourne Alive’ event - one shared approach becomes immediately clear. Each of the nominees, in their own way, play with the gallery space itself in their interrogations of their chosen themes. The colossal Big Dipper by Jesse Darling bursts through the wall of the room itself, as if a direct continuation of his Gravity Road, displayed in Kunstverein Freiburg in 2020. Here, the metal of a traditional mine train track bends and contorts itself across half the space, transforming into a roller coaster as it goes. The sight of the track and the backbreaking labour it implies transforming into a figure of entertainment and excitement, presented in such a self-aware manner, neatly serves as an illustration of a phenomenon all-too-often seen in the art world, that being the tendency to romanticise class struggles as a spectacle to be considered rather than an issue to be addressed.
In a moment of fun interplay between artists, Darling’s sculpture Corpus (Fortress) frames the doorway into Barbara Walker’s presentation Burden of Proof. First displayed at Sharjah Biennial 15, Walker’s monumental portraits are etched directly onto the gallery wall in charcoal. Depicting individuals and families affected by the Windrush scandal, such a presentation carries with it implications of permanence and a fixed home, serving as a pointed reaction to the effects of the scandal in another inventive use of the gallery space itself.
Elsewhere, Rory Pilgrim’s film RAFTS blends poetry, documentary, music, animation, and dance to investigate similar cultural anxieties in the wake of Covid and the climate crisis, building towards an ode to the very act of creativity, the miracle of support structures, and the intersections therebetween. The film itself is screened above a broad wooden structure, with carvings including the word ‘courage’, below which a small pile of stones has been arranged on a matt; as it progresses, RAFTS interacts with the very space it is shown in, with ambient lighting shifting for certain segments, and the centrality of Eddie Paggett’s piece titled Sphere emphasised by its framed presence directly next to the screen.
The ‘score-based artworks’ of Ghislaine Leung, meanwhile, not only experiment with the space but interrogate the very act of creating art in today’s culture. A baby monitor attached to the wall offering a live broadcast to the art store nearby and a wall painting depicting the hours the artist spent in the studio allows the installation to illustrate its own production, while Leung’s work Fountains - an industrial-looking water fountain - is loud enough to drown out any attempts to talk to fellow gallery-goers about the works on display. Its presence on the ground floor of the gallery is notable too, with a full-length window not only giving a view to a city car park but simultaneously giving those in the car park a clear view into the gallery - a democratisation of art on par with Eastbourne Live, a display of public artworks on display as part of the city’s celebration of Towner’s centenary.
The Turner Prize has often courted controversy, frequently utilised as a punchline or implied by traditionalists to be an indictment on the state of contemporary art. Already this year’s nominees have proven divisive, with various publications falling over each other to declare who they think should be the winner. And while, from a certain perspective, the fixation on art’s production and the gallery space itself could be uncharitably characterised as self-indulgent, to do so would be to miss the point of the prize. The actual winner (to be announced on 5th December) is almost immaterial, as demonstrated by the choice to award all four nominees the prize in 2019; far more important is the very existence of a cultural event celebrating artistic experimentation in all its forms. That the yearly exhibition funds such experimentation and encourages gallery visits - particularly to locally-focused galleries, often outside London - only further serves to justify the award’s existence.
The Turner Prize 2023 is showing at Towner Eastbourne until 14th April 2024. The winner will be announced on 5th December.
In its thirty-eight-year history, as illustrated on a timeline on the ground floor of Eastbourne's Towner Gallery, the annual Turner Prize has frequently served as something of a cultural barometer in the UK; this much is evidenced by its name, derived from the contemporarily experimental works of J.M.W. Turner, succinctly setting out the prize’s aim to spotlight the artists at the forefront of creative development in all its forms. This year’s nominees and the accompanying exhibition are no exception to this: while each of its entrants (Jesse Darling, Ghislaine Leung, Rory Pilgrim and Barbara Walker) may cover similar topics - namely the climate crisis, the lingering effects of Covid and Brexit, and contemporary power structures - they each do in a series of art forms and from uniquely differing angles.
Walking around the exhibition of the four artists’ works - showing now in Towner Eastbourne as part of the gallery's centenary celebration and city-wide ‘Eastbourne Alive’ event - one shared approach becomes immediately clear. Each of the nominees, in their own way, play with the gallery space itself in their interrogations of their chosen themes. The colossal Big Dipper by Jesse Darling bursts through the wall of the room itself, as if a direct continuation of his Gravity Road, displayed in Kunstverein Freiburg in 2020. Here, the metal of a traditional mine train track bends and contorts itself across half the space, transforming into a roller coaster as it goes. The sight of the track and the backbreaking labour it implies transforming into a figure of entertainment and excitement, presented in such a self-aware manner, neatly serves as an illustration of a phenomenon all-too-often seen in the art world, that being the tendency to romanticise class struggles as a spectacle to be considered rather than an issue to be addressed.
In a moment of fun interplay between artists, Darling’s sculpture Corpus (Fortress) frames the doorway into Barbara Walker’s presentation Burden of Proof. First displayed at Sharjah Biennial 15, Walker’s monumental portraits are etched directly onto the gallery wall in charcoal. Depicting individuals and families affected by the Windrush scandal, such a presentation carries with it implications of permanence and a fixed home, serving as a pointed reaction to the effects of the scandal in another inventive use of the gallery space itself.
Elsewhere, Rory Pilgrim’s film RAFTS blends poetry, documentary, music, animation, and dance to investigate similar cultural anxieties in the wake of Covid and the climate crisis, building towards an ode to the very act of creativity, the miracle of support structures, and the intersections therebetween. The film itself is screened above a broad wooden structure, with carvings including the word ‘courage’, below which a small pile of stones has been arranged on a matt; as it progresses, RAFTS interacts with the very space it is shown in, with ambient lighting shifting for certain segments, and the centrality of Eddie Paggett’s piece titled Sphere emphasised by its framed presence directly next to the screen.
The ‘score-based artworks’ of Ghislaine Leung, meanwhile, not only experiment with the space but interrogate the very act of creating art in today’s culture. A baby monitor attached to the wall offering a live broadcast to the art store nearby and a wall painting depicting the hours the artist spent in the studio allows the installation to illustrate its own production, while Leung’s work Fountains - an industrial-looking water fountain - is loud enough to drown out any attempts to talk to fellow gallery-goers about the works on display. Its presence on the ground floor of the gallery is notable too, with a full-length window not only giving a view to a city car park but simultaneously giving those in the car park a clear view into the gallery - a democratisation of art on par with Eastbourne Live, a display of public artworks on display as part of the city’s celebration of Towner’s centenary.
The Turner Prize has often courted controversy, frequently utilised as a punchline or implied by traditionalists to be an indictment on the state of contemporary art. Already this year’s nominees have proven divisive, with various publications falling over each other to declare who they think should be the winner. And while, from a certain perspective, the fixation on art’s production and the gallery space itself could be uncharitably characterised as self-indulgent, to do so would be to miss the point of the prize. The actual winner (to be announced on 5th December) is almost immaterial, as demonstrated by the choice to award all four nominees the prize in 2019; far more important is the very existence of a cultural event celebrating artistic experimentation in all its forms. That the yearly exhibition funds such experimentation and encourages gallery visits - particularly to locally-focused galleries, often outside London - only further serves to justify the award’s existence.
The Turner Prize 2023 is showing at Towner Eastbourne until 14th April 2024. The winner will be announced on 5th December.
In its thirty-eight-year history, as illustrated on a timeline on the ground floor of Eastbourne's Towner Gallery, the annual Turner Prize has frequently served as something of a cultural barometer in the UK; this much is evidenced by its name, derived from the contemporarily experimental works of J.M.W. Turner, succinctly setting out the prize’s aim to spotlight the artists at the forefront of creative development in all its forms. This year’s nominees and the accompanying exhibition are no exception to this: while each of its entrants (Jesse Darling, Ghislaine Leung, Rory Pilgrim and Barbara Walker) may cover similar topics - namely the climate crisis, the lingering effects of Covid and Brexit, and contemporary power structures - they each do in a series of art forms and from uniquely differing angles.
Walking around the exhibition of the four artists’ works - showing now in Towner Eastbourne as part of the gallery's centenary celebration and city-wide ‘Eastbourne Alive’ event - one shared approach becomes immediately clear. Each of the nominees, in their own way, play with the gallery space itself in their interrogations of their chosen themes. The colossal Big Dipper by Jesse Darling bursts through the wall of the room itself, as if a direct continuation of his Gravity Road, displayed in Kunstverein Freiburg in 2020. Here, the metal of a traditional mine train track bends and contorts itself across half the space, transforming into a roller coaster as it goes. The sight of the track and the backbreaking labour it implies transforming into a figure of entertainment and excitement, presented in such a self-aware manner, neatly serves as an illustration of a phenomenon all-too-often seen in the art world, that being the tendency to romanticise class struggles as a spectacle to be considered rather than an issue to be addressed.
In a moment of fun interplay between artists, Darling’s sculpture Corpus (Fortress) frames the doorway into Barbara Walker’s presentation Burden of Proof. First displayed at Sharjah Biennial 15, Walker’s monumental portraits are etched directly onto the gallery wall in charcoal. Depicting individuals and families affected by the Windrush scandal, such a presentation carries with it implications of permanence and a fixed home, serving as a pointed reaction to the effects of the scandal in another inventive use of the gallery space itself.
Elsewhere, Rory Pilgrim’s film RAFTS blends poetry, documentary, music, animation, and dance to investigate similar cultural anxieties in the wake of Covid and the climate crisis, building towards an ode to the very act of creativity, the miracle of support structures, and the intersections therebetween. The film itself is screened above a broad wooden structure, with carvings including the word ‘courage’, below which a small pile of stones has been arranged on a matt; as it progresses, RAFTS interacts with the very space it is shown in, with ambient lighting shifting for certain segments, and the centrality of Eddie Paggett’s piece titled Sphere emphasised by its framed presence directly next to the screen.
The ‘score-based artworks’ of Ghislaine Leung, meanwhile, not only experiment with the space but interrogate the very act of creating art in today’s culture. A baby monitor attached to the wall offering a live broadcast to the art store nearby and a wall painting depicting the hours the artist spent in the studio allows the installation to illustrate its own production, while Leung’s work Fountains - an industrial-looking water fountain - is loud enough to drown out any attempts to talk to fellow gallery-goers about the works on display. Its presence on the ground floor of the gallery is notable too, with a full-length window not only giving a view to a city car park but simultaneously giving those in the car park a clear view into the gallery - a democratisation of art on par with Eastbourne Live, a display of public artworks on display as part of the city’s celebration of Towner’s centenary.
The Turner Prize has often courted controversy, frequently utilised as a punchline or implied by traditionalists to be an indictment on the state of contemporary art. Already this year’s nominees have proven divisive, with various publications falling over each other to declare who they think should be the winner. And while, from a certain perspective, the fixation on art’s production and the gallery space itself could be uncharitably characterised as self-indulgent, to do so would be to miss the point of the prize. The actual winner (to be announced on 5th December) is almost immaterial, as demonstrated by the choice to award all four nominees the prize in 2019; far more important is the very existence of a cultural event celebrating artistic experimentation in all its forms. That the yearly exhibition funds such experimentation and encourages gallery visits - particularly to locally-focused galleries, often outside London - only further serves to justify the award’s existence.
The Turner Prize 2023 is showing at Towner Eastbourne until 14th April 2024. The winner will be announced on 5th December.
In its thirty-eight-year history, as illustrated on a timeline on the ground floor of Eastbourne's Towner Gallery, the annual Turner Prize has frequently served as something of a cultural barometer in the UK; this much is evidenced by its name, derived from the contemporarily experimental works of J.M.W. Turner, succinctly setting out the prize’s aim to spotlight the artists at the forefront of creative development in all its forms. This year’s nominees and the accompanying exhibition are no exception to this: while each of its entrants (Jesse Darling, Ghislaine Leung, Rory Pilgrim and Barbara Walker) may cover similar topics - namely the climate crisis, the lingering effects of Covid and Brexit, and contemporary power structures - they each do in a series of art forms and from uniquely differing angles.
Walking around the exhibition of the four artists’ works - showing now in Towner Eastbourne as part of the gallery's centenary celebration and city-wide ‘Eastbourne Alive’ event - one shared approach becomes immediately clear. Each of the nominees, in their own way, play with the gallery space itself in their interrogations of their chosen themes. The colossal Big Dipper by Jesse Darling bursts through the wall of the room itself, as if a direct continuation of his Gravity Road, displayed in Kunstverein Freiburg in 2020. Here, the metal of a traditional mine train track bends and contorts itself across half the space, transforming into a roller coaster as it goes. The sight of the track and the backbreaking labour it implies transforming into a figure of entertainment and excitement, presented in such a self-aware manner, neatly serves as an illustration of a phenomenon all-too-often seen in the art world, that being the tendency to romanticise class struggles as a spectacle to be considered rather than an issue to be addressed.
In a moment of fun interplay between artists, Darling’s sculpture Corpus (Fortress) frames the doorway into Barbara Walker’s presentation Burden of Proof. First displayed at Sharjah Biennial 15, Walker’s monumental portraits are etched directly onto the gallery wall in charcoal. Depicting individuals and families affected by the Windrush scandal, such a presentation carries with it implications of permanence and a fixed home, serving as a pointed reaction to the effects of the scandal in another inventive use of the gallery space itself.
Elsewhere, Rory Pilgrim’s film RAFTS blends poetry, documentary, music, animation, and dance to investigate similar cultural anxieties in the wake of Covid and the climate crisis, building towards an ode to the very act of creativity, the miracle of support structures, and the intersections therebetween. The film itself is screened above a broad wooden structure, with carvings including the word ‘courage’, below which a small pile of stones has been arranged on a matt; as it progresses, RAFTS interacts with the very space it is shown in, with ambient lighting shifting for certain segments, and the centrality of Eddie Paggett’s piece titled Sphere emphasised by its framed presence directly next to the screen.
The ‘score-based artworks’ of Ghislaine Leung, meanwhile, not only experiment with the space but interrogate the very act of creating art in today’s culture. A baby monitor attached to the wall offering a live broadcast to the art store nearby and a wall painting depicting the hours the artist spent in the studio allows the installation to illustrate its own production, while Leung’s work Fountains - an industrial-looking water fountain - is loud enough to drown out any attempts to talk to fellow gallery-goers about the works on display. Its presence on the ground floor of the gallery is notable too, with a full-length window not only giving a view to a city car park but simultaneously giving those in the car park a clear view into the gallery - a democratisation of art on par with Eastbourne Live, a display of public artworks on display as part of the city’s celebration of Towner’s centenary.
The Turner Prize has often courted controversy, frequently utilised as a punchline or implied by traditionalists to be an indictment on the state of contemporary art. Already this year’s nominees have proven divisive, with various publications falling over each other to declare who they think should be the winner. And while, from a certain perspective, the fixation on art’s production and the gallery space itself could be uncharitably characterised as self-indulgent, to do so would be to miss the point of the prize. The actual winner (to be announced on 5th December) is almost immaterial, as demonstrated by the choice to award all four nominees the prize in 2019; far more important is the very existence of a cultural event celebrating artistic experimentation in all its forms. That the yearly exhibition funds such experimentation and encourages gallery visits - particularly to locally-focused galleries, often outside London - only further serves to justify the award’s existence.
The Turner Prize 2023 is showing at Towner Eastbourne until 14th April 2024. The winner will be announced on 5th December.
