Susan Philipsz wins Turner Prize amid student protests
07 December, 2010
by: Spoonfed Arts Team
Student protests drown out artist's moment of glory.
45 year-old Glaswegian sound artist Susan Philipsz scooped the £25,000 Turner Prize at an awards ceremony at Tate Britain last night, but the announcement was largely overshadowed by student protests. The students – as everyone probably knows by now – were protesting at the coalition government's plans to increase university tuition fees, and by some accounts they practically drowned out the whole event.
Not that anyone in the art world could be seen to complain though: Philipsz herself – who won the award for Lowlands, an aural installation for the 2010 Glasgow International Festival – said, "My heart goes out to them. I really support them."
Sir Nicholas Serota, the director of the Tate said, “Everyone who cares about the arts is bound to be concerned by cuts to arts in higher education. Art schools have been laboratories for the kind of work that has gone on to win the Turner Prize.”
Meanwhile, contemporary artist Bob and Roberta Smith was characteristically understated in describing the cuts as “the biggest culture bashing since the book burnings of the 1930s and the dissolution of the monasteries".
The people we feel sorry for though are the Stuckists, who protest against the Turner Prize every single year. It seems they've been rather overshadowed this time round, but at least they're always ready with a pithy soundbite. Here's Stuckist spokesperson, artist Jasmine Maddock, on Philipsz' work: “It’s just someone singing in an empty room. It’s not art. It’s music.”
The Turner Prize 2010 is at Tate Britain until 18th January 2011.
Susan Philipsz - Surround Me is taking place across the City of London until 2nd January 2011.
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Image credit: Susan Philipsz, Lowlands, Glasgow International, Glasgow 2010, Installation view. Courtesy the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York. Photo: Photo: Eoghan McTigue
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