A FEMALE mannequin poised on a lavatory seat next to two supermarket checkouts is among the front-runners for this year's ever-provocative Turner Prize.
The unsettling installation by Glasgow-based visual artist Cathy Wilkes includes four horseshoes and pieces of wood dangling from wires attached to the mannequin's head, and piles of tiles and broken pottery scattered over the floor.
It is one of
four works vying for the prestigious £25,000 prize, which has attracted controversy with bizarre and inscrutable artworks in recent years, including a stained bed, elephant dung and pickled animals.
Ms Wilkes, 42, has already received critical praise for her work, which features porridge bowls, spoons and empty jam jars on the checkout counters.
Such unorthodox artistry, said Sophie O'Brien, one of three Turner Prize curators, demonstrated how Ms Wilkes was "searching out the language of objects, things we overlook, in her daily life".
Art critic Rachel Campbell-Johnston said Ms Wilkes's work, though defying easy interpretation, might be the most approachable of all the four shortlisted artists.
"If you are going to come along and say 'What does it mean?' you're not going to get… an answer in this piece. It's a long surrealist journey," she said.
"I think this is the only one which people outside the art world will understand. It is the least inscrutable of a very inscrutable bunch."
Ms Wilkes, a former sculptor tutor at Dundee's Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, is one of three women shortlisted for the prize. The show, which opens today, has again eschewed figurative painting.
The exhibition, which annually attracts up to 100,000 visitors, also features a film by Runa Islam, a 38-year-old Bangladeshi Londoner, showing a well-dressed woman tipping piece after piece of crockery on to the floor.
Mark Leckey's recorded art lecture on his love of animation, meanwhile, features iconic cartoons. The 43-year-old Londoner uses characters such as Homer Simpson, Garfield and Felix the Cat to communicate his message.
Goshka Macuga, 40, a "cultural archeologist" from Poland, makes up the shortlist, with her glass, steel and fabric installation. In an attempt to "blur the boundaries between artist, curator, and collector", she lays out images of other artists' work alongside random objects.
Ms O'Brien said it was a "really exciting" year for the prize, previous recipients of which include Damien Hirst, Gilbert and George and Grayson Perry.
She said: "The Turner Prize is about showing things that are intriguing and surprising and interesting. It's about creating debate and this year is just like every other year.
"All the four artists do very different things and I think it is a really exciting year and people should come and see for themselves."
The accolade – awarded for a body of work, not just a single piece – is given to outstanding projects by UK artists aged under 50. Only three women have won the prize since its inception in 1984. This year's winner will be named on 1 December. The exhibition, at Tate Britain, runs until 18 January.
FACT BOX
THE frequently oblique and controversial works which been nominated for, and won, the Turner Prize in recent years have created a backlash in the art community.
The Stuckists, a movement which derides the pretension of much modern art, has repeatedly lambasted the Tate for creating an "annual media circus" which celebrates "bland" exhibits in a "ghastly" competition. Members of the movement yesterday staged a demonstration outside Tate Britain, with banners carrying slogans such as "The Turner Prize Is Crap".
Charles Thomson, founder of the Stuckists, said: "The work is not of sufficient quality in accomplishment, innovation or originality of thought to warrant exhibition in a national museum."
The full article contains 626 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
