SCOTLAND’S Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop has called for the Turner Prize to be staged north of the Border, following a hat-trick of Scottish wins in the prestigious £25,000 arts prize.
Martin Boyce’s victory in the world-renowned contest marked the third year in a row that a Scottish-based artist won, with Richard Wright in 2009 and Susan Philipsz in 2010 also taking the award.
Ms Hyslop told The Herald: “With our strong track record in producing past winners and nominees, Scotland would be the ideal host for the Turner Prize exhibition and I would urge the Tate Gallery to bring the event to Scotland.
“Scotland’s creative talent is thriving and there is no better place for innovative artists to live and work at this time.
“The Turner Prize exhibition would be a most welcome addition to our vibrant cultural calendar.”
She was also joined last night by Simon Groom, director of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (SNGMA), who said: “It would be a great idea to host a future Turner Prize in Scotland and this would help to focus even more attention on this country as a centre for innovative contemporary art.”
Seona Reid, director of Glasgow School of Art, Seona Reid, and Andrew Dixon, chief executive of Creative Scotland, have also called for the Turner Prize show, which displays the work of the four shortlisted artists every year, to come to Scotland.
Scots artists have won six times since Douglas Gordon picked up the prize in 1996, and many more have been shortlisted, the run cementing Glasgow’s position as the second most important city for visual arts outwith London.
This year’s event was held in Gateshead’s Baltic gallery, the first time in 27 years it was not held in London’s Tate gallery.
Next year the show returns to London and then, in 2013, it will be staged in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, for its UK City of Culture celebrations.
Some observers have already suggested that 2014, when Glasgow is holding both the Commonwealth Games and its own GI contemporary arts festival, would be an ideal year.
Councillor Gordon Matheson, leader of Glasgow City Council, said: “Martin Boyce’s success is yet another indication of the strength of contemporary visual art in Glasgow and testament to the city’s ability to nurture and attract the most talented artists.”
A Tate spokeswoman said last night: “Tate is delighted at the success of Turner Prize 2011 at Baltic, and we are already working with colleagues in Derry/Londonderry on the presentation of the 2013 Turner Prize as part of the UK City of Culture programme.
“Discussions about 2015 will follow in due course. We are delighted that there is interest in bringing the prize to Scotland and elsewhere in the UK.”
- The SNGMA is opening a new exhibition of sculpture in Edinburgh later this month which features work from both Turner Prize Scots this year, Boyce and Black.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article