The Tigerpicks - picking apart the Turner Prize

United Kingdom | by Ross Purdie | 09 December 2007

So who better to cast their eye over art's most controversial contest, the Turner Prize, which is being held in Liverpool's Tate Gallery for the first time as the city gears up to be European Capital of Culture.

In the same week a panel of experts awarded the prize to a guy dressed up as a bear we took Emma, Frankie and Martyn on a guided tour of the four shortlisted finalists to see what they made of it all ahead of their Liverpool Music Week gig.

Cultural caps were donned, chins were stroked and much bemused merriment was had as we got lost in art for a couple of hours. The Tigerpicks are even thinking of entering next year's competition with an idea of their own. First though, what did they think of this year's lot?

Mark Wallinger

Picked by the Turner Prize judges as the overall winner, the artist dressed up in a bear suit and roamed around a deserted art gallery in Berlin for 10 nights, inviting onlookers to peer through the glass walls and monitor the character's lumbering solitude. It is said to touch on themes of isolation and separation in the context of Cold War Berlin. The piece is presented as a video.

Emma: "I think I need to understand a bit more about it. It's got something to do with a nearby zoo where bears aren't allowed to reproduce."

Frankie: "What I find mad is that he stayed in that suit for ten whole days, or was it just ten nights? I'd like to think he wore it all day and slept in it too."

Martyn: "I like it because it's a very me thing to do. I could imagine myself dressing up as a bear. It wouldn't be my first choice of animal. I'd probably go for a zebra but only the head part so that I'd be like a human zebra clone."

E: "Yours would be much more interesting. I dressed up as a gorilla once, I work for a radio station and it was one of our morning features. I'd like to see the bear in action to really make a judgement."

F: "If it was here in Liverpool I'd probably go and have a look at the bear but the fact it's over in Berlin means it doesn't have as much impact. Watching a film of the bear isn't as good as seeing it in the flesh. Or fur."

Mark: 6.5/10

Nathan Coley

Exploring ways in which architecture and public space can symbolise systems of social and political value Coley's exhibition features a number of paintings with their glass frames blackened out, blocks of wood that bookmark his 'space' and a large scaffold construct emblazoned with Las Vegas style lights that read 'There Will Be No Miracles Here'.

F: "The wooden blocks at the entrance are quite good because it feels as if you're stepping into  a work of art. As soon as you walk over them you've moved into his world. It's got something to do with thresholds."

E: "I'm not too sure about these 'Annihilated Confessions' pictures. I can't quite take them in. They're just old looking pictures that have been covered in what looks like black paint. I'd like to know what's underneath but then maybe that's the point."

F: "I liked his overall work but the pictures were definitely my least favourite bit. They're a bit frustrating."

E: "But I do like, I love, the lights. (Other two 'mmm' in agreement) The message is ok, I'm not bothered about the message, but there's a passage in the broschure which sums it up. It goes: 'The proclamation 'There Will Be No Miracles Here' seems to forbid the possibility of divine intervention at this particular site while simultaneously admitting to the possibility of the existence of a divine force'. 

E: "We'd definitely use the lights in our artwork or something. If we were doing a proper big tour we could take it around and use it on stage. When we're doing stadium shows we'll come back and borrow it."

M: "It's quite a good album title actually, although we've already got one."

E: "Yeah we like that a lot. We like what he's done."

Mark: 8/10

Zarina Bhimji

A series of photos combined with a short film, the artist aims to highlight the state of international mismanagement and conflict that defines the beginning of the 21st century. The photos were taken mainly in Africa and feature deserted settings involving walls and guns, while the film captures sheep's wool in a variety of states as it moves through a factory, set to a dark soundtrack.

M: "What's she trying to do? She's a bit of a try hard. I think she's trying to be really anti-war and make it relevent to today."

F: "What's all the sheep's wool all about though?"

M: "War. Have you never heard of the sheeps of war?"

E: "The photos are a bit boring and I don't know what she's saying."

F: "She says she likes the use of walls. And there are a lot of walls. They're nice walls but they're still just walls."

E: "The film was quite weird, there was nothing you could really interpret from it unlike some of the other art works on display."

M: "I quite liked it because it was quite soothing in a strange way."

E: "I like the sounds but I had no idea what it was. I didn't want to watch it."

F: "I was frustrated by it because I wanted to know what it was. I think anything visual should really stand out and grab you and this didn't really. We've probably spoken more about this artist than any other but only because it's shit. I don't really think it's stimulated a great debate."

2.5/10

Mike Nelson

Most of Nelson's work is so large it couldn't be exhbited in the Tate, but here he has installed four huge white boxes which all feature a small hole. Peer through it and you enter an infinite, mirrored world that sparkles and spans like a kaleidoscope. Nearby, he has collected some wood together and added red tassles to make what appears to be a fire.

E: "I like the pictures in the program but they're all instalations that were too big to bring to Liverpool so he created the boxes. I like it because when you went in you just thought it was four big boxes but once you found the hole it was much better. (Everyone erupts into tittering laughter). You know what, I do this all the time! It's basically got mirrored insides and when you look through it's really cool. It looks like sand dunes. And mirrors."

F: "One had a lot more light in it."

M: "No they were all the same."

F: "They were really good fun, you could gaze in them for ages and really lose yourself."

M: "They reminded me of more war."

F: "I don't think he was really trying to do or say much. A lot of thought has obviously gone into it but above all it was just really nice."

E: "It reminded me of that song 'Let Forever Be' that Noel Gallagher sung on."

M: "It reminded me of that bit at the end of American Pie when Chris Klein and Mena Suvari are sat on that pier and there's loads of flashing lights and lots of sand."

F: "I think it was something to do with infinity but what would I know, I thought the fire was turtles."

Mark: 5/10

Final thoughts...

F: "All of these are a bit serious. They're trying to be a bit too deep."

E: "I prefer art with a bit more personality, something that's more fun and obvious."

M: "I'm going to enter a piece next year. It's going to be in a big room with a walkway round the edge. There's a perspex box with glitter flowing out the top and people lying facedown dead in the glitter. It's about injustice with paedophiles. The glitter represents the naivity of children and the dead people represent paedophiles killing themselves with the children. The glitter is killing their soul."

E: "See, he's just made that up but in a way it's better than all this because it has more meaning and a message. Some of the colours are really dull. I like the idea of fantasies and that kind of thing."

M: "The bear man wasn't taking it seriously enough though. He was just messing around. Zarina was taking it too seriously, we liked Colney and Mike Nelson was just a piss take. The Tigerpicks for the Turner Prize next year."