Turner Prize 2024 Shortlist Announced

Tate Britain officials today named Pio Abad, Claudette Johnson, Jasleen Kaur, and Delaine Le Bas as the four artists shortlisted for theTurner Prize, which this year marks its fortieth anniversary. Work by the quartet will be on display at Tate Britain from September 25 through February 16, 2025, with the winner of the prestigious conceptual art award announced December 3. The prize is attended by a £25,000 ($31,000) purse, with each runner-up awarded £10,000 ($12,500).

“This year’s shortlisted artists can be broadly characterized as exploring questions of identity, autobiography, community and the self in relation to memory, or history or myth,” Tate Britain director and Turner Prize jury chair Alex Farquharson told those assembled at a press conference held this morning at the museum.

The Manila-born Abad was nominated for his exhibition “To Those Sitting in Darkness” at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, whose title recalls that of a Mark Twain poem critiquing American imperialism in the Philippines. The show, cited by the jury for “asking questions of museums,” centered issues of colonialism, including those surrounding the Benin Bronzes looted by British soldiers in 1897 and now in possession of institutions across England, among them the British Museum. Johnson, a native of Manchester known for her massive portraits of Black women, was recognized for her solo exhibitions “Presence,” at London’s Courtauld Gallery, and “Drawn Out,” at New York’s Ortuzar Projects. Initially coming to prominence in the 1980s as part of the Black Arts Movement, Johnson stopped making work in the ’90s. The jury praised her recent portraits of men, women, and children, noting that she was still “taking risks and trying new forms of practice.”

Kaur, who grew up in Glasgow as a member of the city’s Sikh community, was recognized for her exhibition “Alter Altar” at Glasgow’s Tramway. Described by the gallery as “exploring improvisation and political mysticism as tools to reimagine tradition and agreed, inherited myths,” the show notably featured a sculpture comprising an old Ford Escort atop which was draped an enormous hand-crocheted doily, commenting on the artist’s upbringing and her sense of belonging. The Worthing-born Le Bas was nominated for her exhibition “Incipit Vita Nova. Here Begins The New Life/A New Life Is Beginning” at Vienna’s Secession. Inspired by the death of the artist’s grandmother, the show investigated the history of the Roma people through theatrical sculptures and painted fabric hung from the ceiling and walls. The jury lauded the exhibition for its “energy and immediacy” and for its “powerful expression of making art in a time of chaos.”

The Turner Prize was inaugurated in 1984 and is one of the best-known art honors in the world. Typically given to a British artist, it has in the past polarized public opinion around some of the pathbreaking work created by those nominated. The shortlist this year has already inspired varied reactions, with Artsy praising it as “diverse and woman-heavy” and The Telegraph deriding it as “dutiful.”