Symposium Report – 25 April, 2008
“British Contemporary Art and the Turner Prize”

A special symposium,”British Contemporary Art and the Turner Prize” was held to coincide with the opening of the Mori Art Museum's exhibition "History in the Making: A Retrospective of the Turner Prize," on 25 April, 2008, at Roppongi Academyhills. Mori Art Museum director Nanjo Fumio moderated a discussion with two special guests from Turner Prize host institution, Tate: Nicholas Serota, the director, and Lizzie Carey-Thomas, Tate Britain curator. The lively conversation, which extended during question time to members of the audience, explored the history of the Turner Prize and the attitudes of the general public to contemporary art.

After Nanjo Fumio made his opening remarks, "History in the Making" co-curator Lizzie Carey-Thomas delivered a presentation on the last 25 years of British art making reference to the history of the Turner Prize.

1. What is the Turner Prize? - Lizzie Carey-Thomas The Turner Prize is awarded for contemporary art once a year to a British artist or an artist residing in Britain. Each May, four artists, whose work during the previous year is recognized to have been exemplary, are nominated for the Prize. In October, works by those artists are exhibited at Tate Britain, and in December, in what has become a high-profile and nationally-televised event, a Prize-giving ceremony is held. Since its establishment in 1984, a total of 23 artists have been awarded the Turner Prize. While it is now recognized around the world, the Prize's first ten years consisted of a process of trial and error as the best format was determined. In 1990 a downturn in the economy caused the last-minute withdrawal of the major sponsor and the cancellation of the event that that year. A year later in 1991, a partnership was established with Channel Four allowing for a doubling in the prize-money to 20,000 pounds and from that point on the format has remained relatively unchanged. The Turner Prize has directly reflected a number of major turning points in the history of British art. The YBAs (Young British Artists) of the 1990s, who brought Britain to the forefront of the international art world, are the best example. While the term YBA is difficult to define precisely, it is generally used to refer to a phenomenon centered on young artists such as 1995 Turner Prize-winner Damien Hirst and 1993 winner Rachel Whiteread. The exhibition "Freeze," put on by Goldsmiths College students such as Hirst in a commercial warehouse in London's east end in 1988 has taken on mythical status as one of the phenomenon's first manifestations. After that, YBA came to refer to any artist working in any media, but the characteristics that unite the original YBAs were a preference for direct forms of expression, a close relationship with pop culture, conceptualism and an element of self-promotion, which saw the artists' own personalities given significant emphasis. As these changes were happening a number of external forces have also influenced the British art of today, including the establishment of the art magazine Frieze, a change in government from the Conservative Party to the Labour Party, the opening of the Tate Modern in 2000 and the huge growth in the art market.

Next, Tate director Nicholas Serota made a presentation on the changes that have occurred in the Turner Prize since its inception.

2. Changes in the Turner Prize - Nicholas Serota The first thing that should be mentioned is the increasing diversity of media used by artists. From painting and sculpture to photography, video and installation, the Prize is these days awarded to work in all manner of media. Also, the rise in prominence of female artists has been demonstrated by the fact that every year since 1990 at least one of the short-listed artists has been a woman. There is also the internationalization of the Prize, as it has reflected the growing numbers of non-British artists who have chosen to build their careers in the United Kingdom. Japanese artist Takahashi Tomoko, who was short-listed in 2000, is a good example. We've always been told that in Britain of all the art forms it is literature that is most popular. Yet in the last 25 years the numbers visiting Tate have increased from 1 million to 6.5 million per year. This change shows the extent to which interest in art has increased over this time. It is because of the influence of the Turner Prize that young artists and the latest art can now be seen in London.

3. British art education – Highlights from question and answer time   After the two presentations, moderator Nanjo called for questions from the audience. One question related to the differences in art education between Britain and Japan, and in the course of answering this question the panelists described some key characteristics of British art education. On British art education The strength of the art universities in Britain during the 1970s and '80s was that among students and teachers there were a large number who were themselves already active as artists. This gave students the opportunity to understand strategies for building their own careers. Some enterprising students were motivated enough to incorporate exhibition-planning into their own activities as artists. This movement arose in part from a sudden decrease in the number of venues where students could show their art, which in turn was the result of an economic downturn in Britain. Students were taught they had to do things themselves. They would be artists, but they would also have to be business-minded, capable of doing their own promotion and making their own exhibitions. Artists such as Damien Hirst emerged from this context, and they are still active today.

Later in the year, the Turner Prize will be held again in Britain. Whoever it is that wins the Prize, they are sure to become the focus of media attention around the world. Still, more than anybody else, it is perhaps the British general public who are most looking forward to that announcement in December. After all, the Prize provides them with a chance to look at and judge works of art for themselves. The Turner Prize sees the general public examine the art works and debate their significance for society as a whole. Occurring each year, it has become a regular catalyst for people to confront and form their own opinions about art. Moderator Nanjo finished the symposium by thus emphasizing the role the Turner Prize has played in making the general public aware and understanding of contemporary art. He said that in Japan, too, it is time to rethink the artistic industries, and there is much to be learned from the success of the Turner Prize in Britain.

Lecture series: “Understanding British Contemporary Art”

Lecture 1: “From ‘Extended Sculpture’ to ‘New British Sculpture’”

The first in a series of three lectures to explore various periods in the history of British contemporary art, this lecture examined the changes occurring in British sculpture from the 1960s till the 1980s. During this time two important movements occurred in British sculpture, "Extended Sculpture" and "New British Sculpture," making it unique around the world. For this lecture the Mori Art Museum welcomed Shioda Junichi, who has curated many exhibitions of British art in the past. Shioda illustrated his discussion using slides of several important works.
You could say that the foremost issue concerning British sculptors since the 1960s has been to challenge the existing understanding of sculpture as a "human figure on a plinth." In the first half of the 1960s Anthony Caro appeared with steel sculptures placed directly on the ground. It was the work of his students and their generation, which began emerging in the late 1960s and early 1970s, that can be described as Extended Sculpture. This was a movement by artists seeking to transcend the earlier generation, creating sculpture that were completely "free." They were also influenced by Minimalism and Conceptual art, which were in vogue at the time in the United States.
The defining characteristics of Extended Sculpture were that it did not have an immediately recognizable shape and that it did not necessarily have a fixed physical mass. For example, there were Gilbert & George*, who thought of themselves as "living sculptures" and would do performances on top of plinths. Richard Long* would take walks in the countryside leaving behind marks or objects and calling the entire process sculptural action. There were also Barry Flanagan, who would make changeable sculpture using sand and cloth, and Bruce McLean, who worked with ice and said the melting process was part of the work.
After that, in the 1980s, the New Painting and Neo-Expressionism movements occurred and in the realm of painting in particular much was made of the "return of the image." In Britain it was New British Sculpture that emerged as part of this. Setting the new movement apart from Extended Sculpture were a revival of image as metaphor, a return to physicality in the object and a preference for organic forms.
For example, Tony Cragg,* who took discarded objects – such as everyday plastic rubbish – as his material, making sculpture that could take any form. While doing this, however, he also managed to incorporate political issues in his very clever works, and each was sufficient to awaken particular images and ideas in viewers. Richard Deacon*, who referred to himself as a "fabricator," is another artist capable of inspiring all sorts of imaginings in viewers from simple, frame-like forms. Antony Gormley*, who began by taking casts of his own body, sought to produce an anonymous and "primal" vision of human beings. His human figures serve in themselves as philosophical metaphors. Shioda also introduced the work of Bill Woodrow, Anish Kapoor* and Julian Opie, explaining that each of the artists in the New British Sculpture movement expressed similar ideas in a variety of forms.
In the words of Shioda, contemporary art is a history woven by flexible artists capable of inheriting and at the same time critically transcending what artists before them have done. Shioda's lecture was a fascinating examination of that very process.
* indicates Turner Prize-winning artists who are included in this exhibition.

Lecture2: "YBAs: from Brit Pop to Cool Britannia"

The second lecture in the "Understanding British Contemporary Art" lecture series was about the 1990s, the decade of the YBA, or Young British Artist, phenomenon. The lecturer was sociologist and cultural studies specialist Mouri Yoshitaka. Having lived in London for five years during the 1990s, Mouri was able to give a first-hand account of this exciting decade.
First of all, it is important to notice that for quite a number years prior to the 1990s few famous British artists emerged, and that this was the result of a number of very particular circumstances. The first was that many British rock or pop musicians had actually switched from art to music during their studies, meaning that artistic forms of expression were diverted into music. For example, Bryan Ferry, who formed the rock/pop group Roxy Music with some friends, was greatly influenced by lectures he received from Richard Hamilton. Peter Blake's work on the Beatles' record covers was another example.
Also, the British economy, which had gone through a long downturn during the late 1980s, began to improve and the Conservative government, which had been in power for many years, was replaced by Tony Blair's Labour government. These changes created a euphoric atmosphere in Britain in the 1990s, with the entire country seeming to switch to party mode.
While these societal changes were taking place during the 1990s, the artist who attracted the most attention was Damien Hirst*, and it was he who became the central figure in the Young British Artist movement. In 1988 he organized the now legendary "Freeze" exhibition and, after his 1990 work A Thousand Years, it seemed almost everything he did managed to generate some form of controversy. Hirst's greatest contribution was to combine a pop culture with fine art in a way that had not been seen before.
Other YBA artists of note include Tracey Emin, Chris Ofili* and Sarah Lucas, but apart from their knack for creating controversy they have very little in common. Perhaps more important was the influence of the British political situation in facilitating the rise of the YBAs. As mentioned already, the British economy had improved and, under the banner of "Cool Britannia," Prime Minister Blair had firmly declared his support for his country's creative industries. As the Labour government began courting leaders in the creative industries, contemporary artists – along with fashion designers and musicians – found themselves becoming pop icons and gaining considerable popularity and influence. The British music industry, for example, centered on major acts such as Oasis and Blur, experienced a period of unprecedented prosperity. And it was Damien Hirst, who had been at art college with Blur members, who was recruited to make their music videos. This kind of story was in turn very popular with the mass media.
The climax of the YBA phenomenon was the exhibition "Sensation," which was held in London in 1997 and toured to Berlin and New York. The exhibition was very controversial, and at one point one the works, which was about a famous case of serial abduction and murder, was vandalized.
It was after the "Sensation" exhibition that the post-YBA generation emerged, and Mouri's lecture ended at that point in history. The lecture was illustrated with a documentary video of a performance by techno unit-turned-artists KLF and the film Live Forever, which examined the Brit Pop and Cool Britannia movements. Many in the audience enjoyed the trip down memory lane that these provided. Mouri's lecture was a satisfying account of how the contemporary art industry is tied intrinsically to social conditions and to government policies, too.
* indicates Turner Prize-winning artists who are included in this exhibition.

Lecture3: "Post YBAs: Today's UK Art"

The third and final lecture in the "Understanding British Contemporary Art" lecture series examined British art since 2000. One of the two lecturers, is an internationally active independent curator, Roger McDonald, who after studying art theory in England came to Tokyo in 2000 and has been based here ever since. He was joined by Kenichi Kondo, who studied in Britain for five years from 1997 and is the co-curator of the “History in the Making” exhibition. The two discussed some of the important episodes and new movements that have occurred in British art in the past decade.
The lecturers started off by saying, the event that most symbolized the beginning of the new century was the opening of Tate Modern in a converted power station. In addition to functioning as an art center accessible to the general public, the venue finalized the process of the internationalization of the British art scene. Then, when the 9.11 terrorist attacks occurred in 2001, Prime Minister Blair's hasty support for President Bush reverberated for the next few years in the fact that many artists decided to take up political subjects in their work. Meanwhile, the work Martin Creed* exhibited at the Turner Prize exhibition in 2001 when he won the prize seemed at the time to herald the appearance of a new, immaterial form of artistic expression.
In 2002, Documenta 11 (a large international art event held every 5 years in Germany) took place and several Britain-based, but non-YBA (see report from lecture two) artists participated. They were Steve McQueen*, Kutlug Ataman and artists who were either immigrants themselves or the descendents of recent immigrants. In 2003, British art magazine Frieze started an art fair in London. Many well-known galleries participated from around Europe and the United States and it was a great success. From there the British art market expanded, with foreign-backed galleries and galleries working with both the primary and secondary markets appearing on the scene.
One tendency from these four or five years was that there was a return of documentary style, where new takes on history were constructed regarding social happenings such as wars or uprisings. This tendency could be seen in the work of artists such as Mark Wallinger* and Jeremy Deller*.
The lecture extended to the latest trends happening this year, and the characteristics of the artists nominated for this year's Turner Prize were discussed – along with the headline-grabbing work of graffiti artist Banksy. The chronological approach taken by the lecturers involved much jumping backwards and forwards but allowed many events to be examined from many different viewpoints, and provided an effective portrayal of the art of the time.
The lecture also discussed in length about the YBA, but the two lecturers concluded that there is no strict definition of YBA was similar to that of the second lecture in this series. In other words, there is no "right answer" regarding whether an artist is or isn't a YBA. However, the following analyses, which cropped up when the phenomenon was invariably mentioned during the course of the evening, are useful in comprehending the subject:

• YBA was a challenge to the art that came before it, and it resorted to a force to keep apace with the times.
• Most of the artists who are described as "post-YBA" had been working since the '90s but with an approach that was different to the YBAs.
• People talk about the "post-YBA" period, but many of the YBA artists are still the most successful artists around today.
• Artists who had emerged in the 1980s only to be obscured in the shadow of the YBAs are now again receiving deserved critical attention.

The two lecturers worked well together, chatting as they showed some 100 slides. Brimming with current art market analysis and new art theories, the lecture was satisfying not only for art fans, but for everyone working in the arts.
* indicates Turner Prize-winning artists who are included in this exhibition.