Turner arts prize shortlist announced

The Tate art gallery here announced the shortlist on Wednesday for this year's Turner art prize, one of the best-known visual arts prizes in Britain.

The four artists who have made the list are Hurvin Anderson, Andrea Buttner, Lubaina Himid and Rosalind Nashashibi.

The works of the shortlisted artists will be displayed at Ferens Art Gallery in the northern English city of Hull, as part of the city's activities as this year's City of Culture.

The Turner Prize jury praised Anderson as an outstanding British painter whose art questions identity and belonging, and the deeper interplay between figuration and abstraction, and drawing from art history as much as his own Caribbean heritage.

The jury chose Buttner because of her unique approach to collaboration and her exploration of religion, morality and ethics, articulated through a wide range of media including printmaking, sculpture, video and painting.

Himid made the shortlist as as a key figure of the Black Arts Movement. Himid has consistently put in the foreground of her work, the contribution of African diaspora to Western culture. Working across painting, installation, drawing and printmaking, and bringing both old and new work together, her work is both visually arresting and critical, the jury noted.

The jury was impressed by the depth and maturity of Nashashibi's work, which often examines sites of human occupation and the coded relationships that occur within those spaces through the use of the camera as an eye to observe moments and events, contrasting reality with moments of fantasy and myth.

Jury chairman Alex Farquharson, who is director of Tate Britain, told a press conference on Wednesday that the upper age limit of 50 on nominees had been removed this year, and all the nominees were older than age 40, the oldest being 62.

"Artists can experience a breakthrough at any age without any risk of the prize becoming a lifetime achievement award," he said.

The Turner Prize has often caused controversy since its founding in 1984 as a platform to promote modern art.

Previous nominees and winners have been criticized, notably the 1999 winner Martin Creed whose piece "Work No. 227: The lights going on and off" consisted of an empty room filled with light for five seconds and then plunged into darkness for five seconds -- a pattern repeated indefinitely.

The winner of the 25,000 pound (32,200 U.S. dollars) prize will be announced at the Ferens Gallery in December. Endit