Stuart GouldenMartin Boyce has tonight been announced as the winner of the 27th Turner Prize.
Shown live on Channel 4, Boyce was presented with the award and a £25,000 cheque from celebrity photographer Mario Testino. The Glasgow School of Art graduate is famed for his trademark sculptural installations, combining elements of the external landscape with interior design to create melancholic dreamscapes.
The remaining nominees on shortlist were Karla Black, Hilary Lloyd and George Shaw. Boyce was the bookies’ favourite going into tonight, whilst George Shaw had caught the public’s imagination, with 39% of respondents to a Channel 4 poll backing the Ilfracombe-based painter. There was far less love shown to the pairing of Matthew Collings and Goldie as critics for Channel 4 however, with the latter in particular receiving the wrath of the Twittersphere.
The Turner Prize is a magnet for media attention, promising to propel the careers and future valuations of winners, with notable past victors including Gilbert & George (1986), Anish Kapoor (1991), Antony Gormley (1994), and Damien Hirst (1995).
This year’s prize was hosted outside of London for only the second time in its history, at the BALTIC gallery in Gateshead. In the future, the prize will be held in a different city around the UK every other year, returning to London in the years between.
Sarah Stewart, chief executive of the Newcastle Gateshead Initiative, told Channel 4 News: “For us, the very fact the Tate were willing to let the Turner Prize be hosted at the Baltic really did confirm the transformation of Newcastle-Gateshead as a cultural capital. “And with visitors, well in the first week that the Turner Prize was open, around 30,000 went through. We’ve already had 110,000 people come through and we’ve got a month to go.”
Have you been to the BALTIC to view the Turner Prize exhibition? What do you make of this year’s choice of winner?
