Oxford-born, Berlin-based visual artist Jesse Darling has won this year’s prestigious Turner Prize. Previous winners include Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Rachel Whiteread and Anthony Gormley.
Accepting the award, Darling defended the importance of the arts and criticized former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for “paving the way for the greatest trick the Conservatives have ever pulled, which was to persuade the working people of Britain to work, to express themselves and to express themselves.” “What is described as culture in ad inserts is only for certain types of people from certain socioeconomic backgrounds.”
“I just want to say, don’t believe it, I’m talking to the public, I’m talking to the British public, don’t believe it, it’s for everyone,” he added, before waving a small Palestinian flag.
When asked what she would do with the £25,000 prize money, Darling said she would “get a new tooth fitted, pay my rent and buy my friends a drink”. “The presentation of materials and ordinary objects such as concrete, welded barriers, hazard tape, office folders and mesh curtains shakes up perceived notions of labour, class, Britishness and power to convey a familiar yet frenetic world evocative of social collapse.”
They also applauded his ability to show “the underlying fragility of the world.” Darling beat artists Ghislaine Leung, Rory Pilgrim and Barbara Walker to win the grand prize.
So who is the Slade-trained, award-winning 41-year-old artist? Here’s everything you need to know about this year’s winner.
Darling was educated in London
He received his BA from Central Saint Martins and his MFA from Slade. He had initially studied for a year at Amerstand’s Gerrit Rietveld Academy, before, as Darling put it, “they expelled me for bad behavior”.
Won awards with two exhibitions
Darling won this year’s Turner Prize for her 2022 exhibitions No Medals, No Ribbons at Modern Art Oxford and Enclosures at Camden Art Centre.
No Metal, No Ribbon examined how fragile systems of power are, like bodies. Custodians continued this research by looking at how the fragility often associated with living beings can also be found in society and technologies.
“Darling argues that all technologies, bodies, and cultures are inherently fallible, but we constantly imbue them with meaning in order to survive,” Artforum explained in 2018.
It has been exhibited worldwide, including at the Venice Biennale and Tate Britain in 2019.
Recent solo exhibitions include Gravity Road, Kunsteverein Freiburg, Freiburg (2020), Selva Oscura, Galerie Sultana, Paris (2019) and La Friche Belle de Mai, Marseille (2019).
Other group exhibitions include Crip Time, Museum MMK für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (2021); Three, Four Trees, EA Shared Space, Tbilisi, (2020); A Thin Line, Kunsthalle Bremen, Bremen (2020); Transcorprealities, Museum Ludwig, Köln (2019) and Body Splits, SALTS, Basel (2019).
Multidisciplinary artist often uses inexpensive, everyday objects to create his work
“For most of my applications, I use what is cheap or free and easy to find,” Darling told Modern Art Oxford in February 2022. “There is a poetry in objects that everyone can recognize from their daily lives, like a shortcut to meaning.” I find myself paradoxically drawn to petrochemical materials (steel, plastic, silicon).”
“These materials, in a way, produced my body and they tell their own story. You can call it autobiographical, but my autobiography is not just about me; it is a story about the act of enclosure, the industrial revolution, agriculture. The British empire, the transatlantic slave trade, Henry Ford, Walt Disney, the World Wars, mines and miners’ strikes, the welfare state and its dissolution, the failed sexual revolution, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, the twin towers, Brexit and Covid 19.”
Many of Darling’s works also touch on queer themes, using subtle references and symbolism. The transgender artist has previously said: “I don’t want to make the gesture of addressing the heterosexual world from a strange place. I would prefer the work to turn the viewer gay, not the other way around.”
Darling also published a collection of poetry called Virgins.
Darling’s book of poetry, published in January, was described by critics as “scratchy, sharp and alert to both the absurdity and beauty of life” and “a beautiful, irreverent thing”.
He’s done a lot of odd jobs over the years
“I’ve done just about everything for money, from music journalism to web copywriting to translation to circus clowning to sex work,” Darling told Rhizome magazine in 2012. My thoughts on production, labor and the state of work, or work in general, are important. “As a result of all this, I must admit that I gradually, accidentally, became politicized.”
“For example, it took me a long time to figure out how to qualify art as work because I didn’t come from a straight art school background, and some of the art world bullshit is so rare that it’s full of unthinking privilege and tiresome tropes.” This has no meaning outside the circle. “I don’t claim to be out of the loop these days, but I still struggle with these things.”
What is the Turner Prize?
The Turner Prize is an annual arts award given to “an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of his work in the previous year.” This year’s jury, chaired by Tate Britain director Alex Farquharson, included Wellcome Collection director Melanie Keen, Camden Arts Center director Martin Clark, and Cromwell Place’s general manager and artistic director Helen Nisbet.
Who else was shortlisted this year?
Ghislaine Leung, Rory Pilgrim and Barbara Walker were the artists who made it to this year’s shortlist.
Stockholm-born conceptual British artist Leung was nominated for her solo exhibition Fountains at Simian in Copenhagen, where objects associated with babies, such as toys and monitors, ask questions about time, leisure and labor. “The jury particularly praised the warm, humorous and transcendent qualities that lie behind the flamboyant aesthetic and conceptual nature of Leung’s work,” Tate Britain’s press release said.
Multidisciplinary artist Rory Pilgrim is nominated ROCKS at the Serpentine and Barking Town Hall, as well as a live performance of the work at Cadogan Hall. Pilgrim was recognized by the jury for creating “beautiful and expressive musical arrangements” that “shed light on the voices of his collaborators”.
Barbara Walker has been nominated for Burden of Proof at the international exhibition platform Sharjah Biennale 15. Walker’s presentation delved into issues of racial identity, exclusion and power by examining the impact of the Windrush scandal. The jury praised his ability to “use portraits on a monumental scale to tell stories of a similarly monumental nature, while maintaining a profound sensitivity and sincerity throughout the full scope of his work.”
Where can you see the work?
The works of the four shortlisted artists are currently on display at Towner Eastbourne.
Turner Prize 2023, Towner Eastbourne, until 14 April 2024; townereastbourne.org.uk