AUTUMN art
ART
BEATS
As the Turner Prize exhibition prepares to arrive in Glasgow for the very first time, David Pollock looks at what this year’s shortlist might have in store
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Janice Kerbel ‘DOUG’
, V A N C O U V E R
ASSEMBLE The irst ever design studio to be nominated for the Turner Prize, Assemble is a London-based collective which blurs the lines between art and architecture. Its practice seeks ‘to actively involve the public as both participant and collaborator in the ongoing realisation of the work’. One of these projects focuses on the Granby Four Streets in Toxteth, Liverpool. A series of former workers’ cottages dating back to the start of the 20th century, they were seen as local symbols of urban deprivation after their abandonment following 1981’s Toxteth Riots. Working with the local community, Assemble have transformed these buildings into community-owned houses and the surrounding area into public space. It’s a similar approach to the one they’ve used in playfully renovating public spaces around London, and in their Baltic Street Adventure Playground project in Dalmarnock, Glasgow, completed as a permanent artistic commission for the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games. BONNIE CAMPLIN A lecturer in ine art at Goldsmiths College in London, Camplin creates complex multimedia works that explore a variety of themes around the subject of ‘the invented life’, which translates as the myths which we all select for ourselves and draw inspiration from in the name of developing our personality and sense of self, both public and private. In an age where the internet allows exposure to myths and the curation of our own selves, it’s an extremely relevant conversation. Her broad-ranging practice has included creating drawings, ilm, music, performance and text, while she formerly worked in a manner akin to a theatre producer, dancing and creating live work for experimental club nights in Soho. Her nominated work, ‘The Military Industrial Complex’, is an archive-room installation comprised of various books, ilms and so on, which looks at what we consider to be ‘consensus reality’ and how we collectively perceive that as being a threat.
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Assemble
T here’s no slight irony in the fact that this year’s Turner Prize is coming to Glasgow for the very irst time with none of the four artists on display hailing from the city. That’s an absence that bucks recent trends: three of last year’s nominees were Glasgow School of Art alumni, including winner Duncan Campbell. But the fact that it’s coming to Glasgow at all remains a validation of the city’s standing in the contemporary UK art scene. Presenting new work from each artist in Tramway before the winner’s presentation in December, the prize will eventually be awarded to one of three competing female artists or an 18-strong design collective.
28 THE LIST 3 Sep–5 Nov 2015