The Turner Prize 2010

The Turner Prize is awarded annually for an outstanding exhibition. Four artists are shortlisted and they present their work in a three-month exhibition at Tate Britain.

Dexter Dalwood has been nominated for his solo exhibition at Tate St Ives, which revealed the rich depth and range of his approach to making painting that draws upon historical tradition as well as contemporary cultural and political events. He is known for making paintings of famous places he’s never seen, making plausible suggestions of those iconic haunts, Dexter Dalwood pictures his own documentation of history.

Angela de la Cruz has been nominated for her solo exhibition, After at Camden Arts Centre, London. De la Cruz uses the language of painting and sculpture to create striking works that may represent the death of conventional paintings. Her paintings are more like a piece of sculpture escaping the realms of the canvas while braking down its boundaries.

Susan Philipsz has been nominated for the presentations of her work Lowlands at the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art and Long Gone in the group exhibition Mirrors at the Museo de Arte Contemporanea de Vigo, Spain. Philipsz uses her own voice to create uniquely evocative sound installations that play upon and extend the poetics of specific, often out-of-the-way spaces.

The Otolith Group have been nominated for their project A Long Time Between Suns, which took the form of exhibitions at Gasworks and The Showroom, London with accompanying publication. The Otolith Group questions the nature of documentary history across time by using material found in its many varieties, in particular the moving image.

The fourth plinth

This year’s exhibition, held in the crypt of St Martin-in-the-fields church in Trafalgar Square has attracted a lot of attention, as the winner will grace the plinth during the 2012 Olympic games in London.

It’s a coveted privilege but it comes at a price. There are demands placed upon the sculpture: two essential criteria for the art is that it is attractive and interesting to look at and that it must convey a universal message which is relevant to contemporary society.

Proposals were shortlisted by judges for the 2012 commission are the best of the best, although almost all of them fulfil only one of the two requirements.

Katharina Frisch’s Hahn/Cock is a sculpture of a cockerel rendered in stunning ultramarine blue. This sculpture would bring vibrancy to the square with its otherwise drab colour scheme. The message for this piece is somewhat vague. It uses the cockerel as a symbol for regeneration, awakening and strength.

To contrast this, Brian Griffiths’ Battenberg is a huge cumbersome brick in the shape of this quintessentially British cake.

The only proposal that seems to fulfil all the criteria for the project is Allora and Calzadila’s untitled a.t.m organ. It’s a replica of an old fashioned pipe organ. If installed on the fourth plinth the organ will be linked to an a.t.m at the ground level, which when used by the general public, will trigger sounds of varying pitch and volume with each press of the a.t.m’s buttons.