- Venue
- Tate Britain
- Location
Tomma Abts surprised many people by winning the Turner Prize with her abstract paintings. During the last years, the prize has often been awarded to conceptual art. However, beyond its seemingly simple forms, Abts' work takes place in a long and complex tradition of modernist art. It reopens the debates about the characteristics of painting as a medium of art, which date back to the late 1940s and the 1950s. She rejects the flatness and the stability of the canvas. Her forms introduce an element of movement and depth within the picture frame. Like artists such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, Abts work claims an autonomous status for art. It has no other purpose beyond its form and colour. Abts' art exists only for itself. In doing so, her work shares aims with and is best represented in great spaces of art such as Tate.
It is fashionable not to like the Turner Prize. The problem with the Turner Prize is that the artists are nominated for exhibitions that jurors have visited earlier in the year. Mark Titchner's room for the Turner Prize is less successful than the settings of the Gloucester Road tube station where his large-scale posters with ambiguous messages were first exhibited. Rebecca Warren's new bronze sculptures with rich surfaces and her powerful clay ladies insist a place in history of sculpture, challenging great masters such as Rodin and Degas. Phil Collins' work looks under the skin of reality-television industry, asking how camera affects our behaviour. Although Collins follows the modes of television production, his art allows negative criticism, offering an unregulated forum to anyone whose life is affected by reality-television. Although this may not be the best Turner Prize year ever, it is certainly not the worst.
In spite of the good competition, it is not surprising that Abts won the prize. Abts improves the failing statistics of the prize. Although the Turner Prize has been awarded since 1984, she is only the third woman to win the prize. Abts is also a self-trained artist. Her work promotes widening participation and opportunities beyond the traditional art education. Of course, this is problematic, as no one should win because of their sex, skin colour or educational background. However, Tate as a national institution needs to be serious about both appointing judges and nominating artists of diverse origins. In the future, looking outside the box of art that is made by middle-class artists of white origins could bring a new and refreshing flavour to the Turner Prize.
