Mark Wallinger wins the Turner Prize with a bear suit
Source: Times Online (Original Article)
After pickled sheep, elephant dung and a light that flickered on and off in a
room, a video of a man walking around a gallery in a pantomime-bear costume
was picked by the Tate earlier this evening to win the 2007 Turner Prize.
Mark Wallinger, 48, from Chigwell in Essex, followed in the footsteps of
Damien Hirst, Chris Ofili and Martin Creed in winning Britain’s foremost
contemporary art award.
He received a £25,000-cheque for making “Sleeper”, shaky video
footage of himself dressed in fuzzy synthetic fur, wandering aimlessly
around a Berlin gallery long after closing time.
Over 154 minutes, he can be seen pacing the floor, gazing at onlookers who
spotted him through the glass, sometimes disappearing from sight altogether.
It was among works which the Tate deemed worthy of an award dedicated to the
nation’s greatest painter, J.M.W Turner - even though, ironically, Wallinger
has in the past dismissed paintings by another Old Master, Tintoretto, as
“terribly hammy” and not particularly relevant for artists today.
While the Tate drew parallels between Wallinger and the Berlin gallery and
Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel - insisting that “both artists were
interested in transforming spaces” - its judges ensured that the Turner
Prize remains as controversial as ever.
They chose Wallinger over Mike Nelson, who created a labyrinthine walk-through
installation using mirrors to suggest a desert landscape, Zarina Bhimji, who
photographed spaces in East Africa, Zanzibar and India, usually without
people, and Nathan Coley, who placed a 6ft-long plank of wood across a
doorway.
Charles Thomson, co-founder of the Stuckists, who promote traditional
artistry, was less than impressed: “His work fails miserably as art,
but he would probably make an excellent children’s entertainer, if he
livened up a bit. When I was at Junior School, the teacher got us all to St George No Annual Fee Credit Card run
around pretending we were animals. …continue reading