On Monday, I'll be off to Derry-Londonderry. It is the UK City of Culture, and I will be there to view the annual exhibition of the four Turner Prize short-listed artists, Laure Prouvost, Tino Sehgal, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, as well as Glasgow's David Shrigley.
The show, housed in Building 80/81 of Ebrington, a red-brick Victorian former army dormitory building, should be intriguing, especially when it comes to Shrigley's work. He has been short-listed this year for his show at the Hayward Gallery, Brain Activity, which not only featured his well known drawings, but sculpture, film and photography. I wonder what he has up his sleeve for the show.
Every year, how and why the winner of the title and the £40,000 cheque is chosen is an interesting topic. Sometimes, it seems, the judges choose the winner based on his or her past portfolio more than the actual art work in that one-off exhibition itself. Other years, such as when Glasgow's Richard Wright won in 2009, what the artist displays in the Turner exhibition itself could be seen as a defining punctuation mark on a series of works made over a long period of time. Then, Wright's beautiful fresco in gold leaf not only entranced the public but the judges, its transient beauty seeming to sum up the artist's distinctive practice in one deft, highly skilled and elegant work. This year, it seems Yiadom-Boakye (who is also, many have noted, the first black woman to be shortlisted for the prize) a painter of portraits of imaginary people, is the early favourite to win the often contentious award. If Shrigley does win, he will be the seventh Scotland-based or trained artist to win since 1996. Martin Boyce won in 2011, following Susan Philipsz in 2010 and Wright in 2009. Past winners also include Simon Starling (trained at Glasgow School of Art), Martin Creed (raised in Lenzie) and Douglas Gordon, from Maryhill. And of course the whole event will be staged in Glasgow in 2015.
Once short-listed for the prize, too, was Jim Lambie (in 2005), whose work is also present in the intriguing 2014 GI (Glasgow International) programme, which was launched last week while I was on holiday. The major commissions, from Bedwyr Williams, whose Wales show at this year's Venice Biennale has been much praised, Aleksandra Domanovic, Sue Tompkins at Goma and Simon Martin, reacting to exhibits at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum will be interesting to see. There are more than 50 additional solo and group exhibitions, and a slightly different structure to the festival, under new director, Sarah McCrory. The year will also see Generation, the major retrospective of Scottish contemporary art, which has perhaps allowed the festival to be even more international in its outlook.
The festival will be in its sixth incarnation when its opens on April 4 next year, and the last event was undoubtedly successful: more than 200,000 visits were recorded in 2012, with 30,000 to Sacrilege, the inflatable Stonehenge on Glasgow Green, alone. There was a 100% rise in attendees, up from 16,237 to 33,945. Ms McCrory's new vision has a very successful act, Katrina Brown, to follow. I am looking forward to seeing whether GI continues to underline and champion Glasgow's rude artistic health.
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