Mark Leckey Wins 2008 Turner Prize
At the awards ceremony at the Tate Britain, London, the artist revealed his interest in starting a TV show
At the awards ceremony at the Tate Britain, London, the artist revealed his interest in starting a TV show
The eyes of the British art world were on Tate Britain last night, for the announcement of the winner of the 2008 Turner Prize. This year’s celebrity envelope-opener was singer Nick Cave, who spared the audience his views on art prizes (unlike the colourfully loquacious Madonna in 2006) by briskly revealing the winner to be Mark Leckey.
By and large, the art world and the general public (whose opinion on the prize is measured at the bookies) seemed to concur with the jury panel which, in the interests of full disclosure, included our own Jennifer Higgie alongside David Adjaye, Daniel Birnbaum, Suzanne Cotter and Tate Britain director Stephen Deuchar. Of the four artists shortlisted – the others were Goshka Macuga, Cathy Wilkes and Runa Islam – Leckey certainly seems to have the most singular artistic voice, and the kind of omnivorous engagement with his project that makes me always excited to see what he’ll do next.
In his acceptance speech he humbly summed up his feelings about winning: ‘I’m chuffed to bits … this is good.’ He also seems to relish the prize’s challenge of testing his work within British popular culture – not merely the subject of his work but also what Leckey aspires his work to be. I immediately think of past Turner Prize winners such as Jeremy Deller or Grayson Perry who have used the exposure given them by the prize to open doors beyond the art world that are normally out of artists’ reach. In Leckey’s case, he admits that he’d like to have more exposure in Britain (he shows a lot in mainland Europe, but rarely in the UK), but he’s not interested in commercial gallery or museum exhibitions. ‘I want a TV show’ he said last night. ‘I want to do an art variety programme… like The Two Ronnies, but with art’. ‘Wow’, was the best the astonished interviewer could manage. Wow indeed. I can’t wait.
Read artist Nathaniel Mellors’ feature on him in issue 62 of frieze, first published in October 2001, here or his recent ‘Life in Film’ piece, from frieze issue 115.
Now we must wait until May for the shortlist for the 2009 prize. Any suggestions for who’ll be up next?
