Turner Prize 2009

If you could nominate any artist working with film, video, animation for the Turner Prize who would it be?

This year's Turner Prize shortlist consists of a sculptor, a surrealist, a Lucy Skaer and a painter called Richard Wright (no relation to the curator of our Computer Baroque exhibition) - not a video artist in sight. Since Mark Leckey received the prize last year for his animation lecture Cinema in the Round, I wonder if this is some kind of backlash? For one, Jonathan Jones, Guardian critic and one of this year's judges, found all of last year's nominees decidedly dull it seems.

This got me thinking of a dream team Turner Prize shortlist of artists/filmmakers, as there is such a wealth of artists working with film in the UK - Clio Barnard, Ben Rivers, Wood and Harrison, David Shrigley (why has he never been nominated?), Sebastian Buerkner, Ann Course, Sarah Miles, Cory Arcangel, AL and AL (recent Liverpool Art Prize winners), Dryden Goodwin, Lindsay Seers, Jordan Baseman, Neeta Madahar...

So what do you think? If you could nominate who would it be? Comment below or email to info@animateprojects.org if you're shy.


A (film) history of the Turner Prize:
1994 - Willie Doherty was the first video artist to be nominated ten years after the award was launched
1996 - Douglas Gordon, creator of 24 Hour Psycho,was the first video artist to win
1997 - won by photographer and filmmaker Gillian Wearing
1998 - Sam Taylor-Wood and Tacita Dean were both nominated
1999 - Steve McQueen was awarded the prize, filmmakers Jane and Louise Wilson were also nominated
2001 - Isaac Julien nominated, a year of controversy as Martin Creed wins for conceptually animating a space in Work No. 227: The lights going on and off
2003 - Willie Doherty nominated for the second time
2004 - Jeremy Deller wins, all four nominated artists (Kutlug Ataman, Langlands and Bell, Yinka Shonibare, Jeremy Deller) use video and documentary to explore political themes
2005 - Darren Almond nominated for his four-screen installation If I Had You
2006 - Phil Collins nominated for his exploration of representations of reality
2007 - Zarina Bhimji nominated
2008 - Mak Leckey wins for his investigations into animating ideas and objects, Runa Islam nominated for her choreographed film installations


Image: David Shrigley