Susan Philipsz Wins The Turner Prize

by Ruth Barker, 7 Dec 2010

Hello,

just a note as I’m busy busy busy, but wanted to say Congratulations to Susan Philipsz. You can see a link to the Gi Coverage of her win (and a clip of the work itself) here.

Susan Philipsz, Glasgow 2009, Courtesy the artist.

Good stuff for Scottish art, I reckon, and brilliant to see an artist being nominated for such a high profile award based on a public work.

Ah, but I can hear Matt Baker asking: is Lowlands public art at all? And I’d probably say something about that sliding scale of publicness again. The more work I see the more I think that very few projects are wholly or purely public. There are degrees in all things, not least in this. I think many people will have encountered Lowlands publicly – in the sense that they will have come across it unexpectedly in public space. This is of course in addition to the Gi Festival audience who went looking for the work, and so had it framed in a very different way (by, in fact, an explicitly art context) through the festival programme. Could it be that Lowlands as it existed in Glasgow was actually two distinct works, defined not so much by a change in the state of the work itself, as by the different perspectives of these distinct audiences? Not sure. Something to muse over, perhaps.

More later, hope everyone’s wrapped up warm. Hello to Anne Marie, Al, and Sarah, who were trapped in their cars for hours last night (all three being teachers who had struggled into their schools). Glad you all made it home safe eventually. I hope everybody else did, too.

R.

Oh, you might be interested in these related musings, too.