In its snapshot of art now, the show offers a lens through which to see our troubled world
On Saturday the 2019 Turner prize exhibition opens at the appropriately named Turner Contemporary in Margate. The prize is hosted by venues outside London in alternate years, and this institution feels like a particularly appropriate home. The David Chipperfield-designed gallery, which opened in 2011, has had a transformative effect on Margate and its patch of Kent. This has not been easy. But an art scene has flourished. From now until January, locals and visitors will be able to enjoy not just the Turner prize exhibition itself, but a whole town’s worth of celebration: shows, workshops, walks, performances and community events under the banner of Margate Now, guest curated by the actor and art lover Russell Tovey.
The Turner prize exhibition, for which British or Britain-based artists are eligible, does what it ought to do: acts as a snapshot, rough and ready though it may be, of what the most interesting artists are doing now. It goes further by presenting a lens through which to understand our troubled times. In this sense, it should be taken as a whole, and it hardly matters who wins on 3 December. Tai Shani offers a lush, luxuriant installation inspired by Semiramis, the ninth century BC queen of Assyria, and Christine de Pizan’s 1405 allegorical work, The Book of the City of Ladies, is a fantasy of a post-patriarchal world, a sidelong look at the state of gender relations today. Oscar Murillo’s installation consists of a creepy congregation of papier-mache figures sitting on church pews. They gaze out of the gallery’s window to sea expectantly, but their view is hidden by a black curtain. All they can see is a chink of light, perhaps of hope. One thinks of Britain’s own present, a nation gazing out into an obscure future.
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