Turner
Prize 2017: Lubaina Himid's win makes history
Lubaina Himid has become the oldest winner of the Turner Prize, and the
first black woman to pick up the art award.
The 63-year-old Zanzibar-born, Preston-based
artist won the £25,000 prize for work addressing racial politics and the legacy
of slavery.
The judges praised her "uncompromising
tackling of issues including colonial history and how racism persists
today".
She was named the winner at a ceremony in
Hull, currently UK City of Culture.
Who is
Lubaina Himid?
Described in February by The Daily Telegraph as
"the under-appreciated hero of black British art", Himid made her
name in the 1980s as one of the leaders of the British black arts movement -
both painting and curating exhibitions of similarly overlooked artists.
But she's now got the recognition she
deserves. Her section of the Turner Prize exhibition in Hull contains work from
the 1980s to today, including wooden figures, pottery and newspapers that she
has painted on.
The centrepiece is 1987's A Fashionable
Marriage, based on William Hogarth's Marriage a la Mode, which features a cast
of cut-out characters including a flirting Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
There are also porcelain dinner sets, found in junk shops. Himid has
painted images of black slaves on some and aristocrats - some of whom are
vomiting at the news of the abolition of slavery - on others.
She has also painted over parts of newspaper
pages to show how they "used black people in a very subtle way which could
be said to undermine their identity".
She is professor of contemporary art at the
University of Central Lancashire and was made an MBE in 2010 for services to
black women's art.
WHAT THE JUDGES SAID
The Turner Prize panel said they admired
"her expansive and exuberant approach to painting which combines satire
and a sense of theatre".
They also said they "acknowledged her
role as an influential curator and educator who continues to speak urgently to
the moment".
Out of
the 'wilderness'
Himid said she was "thrilled" to
win, and thanked a list of long-time supporters in her acceptance speech.
She said: "To the art and cultural
historians who cared enough to write essays about my work for decades - thank you,
you gave me sustenance in the wilderness years."
Speaking to BBC News afterwards, she said
some of the art establishment was now catching up with her.
"I was overlooked by critics, by press,
but I was never overlooked by art historians or curators or other
artists," she said.
She said her win probably wouldn't change
people's perspectives and attitudes, but added: "I think it will get
people talking, which is the point of my work."
Asked how she would spend the £25,000
cheque, she said: "I spend quite a lot of my money working with other
artists, sometimes asking them to make things or helping them to make things
when maybe they didn't get a grant or whatever.
"So I'll do a bit of that. And I'll buy
some shoes."
The
Turner Prize grows up
After a change in the rules, this was the
first time since 1991 that artists over the age of 50 were eligible for the
prize, which used to be infamous for rewarding outrageous Young British
Artists.
As well as Himid, 52-year-old Birmingham
painter Hurvin Anderson made it on to this year's shortlist.
Tate Britain director Alex Farquharson, who
chaired this year's jury, said there was a desire to celebrate artists who had
previously been neglected by the mainstream.
And there was a very international feel to
the shortlist, which also included Stuttgart-born Andrea Buttner and film-maker
Rosalind Nashashibi, who was born in Croydon to Palestinian-Irish parents.
Their work is on show at the Ferens art
gallery in Hull until 7 January.
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