TATE BRITAIN


TATE BRITAIN

Turner Prize

The Turner Prize: Year by Year

1996

Winner:
Douglas Gordon

Short list:

Jury:

  • Bice Curiger, Editor-in-Chief, Parkett Magazine
  • Mel Gooding, writer and critic
  • Edward Lee, representative of the Patrons of New Art
  • James Lingwood, curator and co-director of Artangel Trust
  • Nicholas Serota, Director, Tate Gallery

First time that video artists wins Turner Prize

The all-male shortlist attracted some criticism in a year when young female artists had been particularly visible. The lack of supposedly ‘controversial’ artworks following the excitement of the previous year led some to dismiss the exhibition as ‘boring’ or ‘sensible’. For the first time the prize was awarded to an artist working with video, confirming the growing acceptance of film and video as a medium in its own right. In this year Brilliant! New Art From London took place at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, showing work by twenty-two young British artists and attracting widespread attention.

img 1 credit line Douglas Gordon 24 Hour Psycho 1993 Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery © Douglas Gordon
From Psycho, 1960, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, Universal Studios © Universal
The 1996 Turner Prize poster The 1996 Turner Prize poster
The 1991 Turner Prize nomination receipt The 1991 Turner Prize nomination receipt

Quotes

‘When I couldn’t sleep  as a child I used to go to bed with my parents and watch TV with them … Film has been the common denomination for our generation. People will watch a film.’

– Douglas Gordon quoted in The Independent on Sunday, October 1996

‘For Gordon, and many others of his generation, film is simply a part of the shared modern landscape of the imagination. This is the Turner Prize’s first vindication of film, video and installation art.’

– Adrian Searle, The Guardian, November 1996

‘This year’s nominees included a painter, a photographer and a conceptual artist. It is symptomatic of the way British art is changing that Douglas Gordon, the winner, makes dramatic video installations which draw on film, literature and psychology … I don’t see how a painter stood a chance.’

– Richard Dorment, The Daily Telegraph, November 1996

Other News

  • Taliban seize Kabul after Soviet withdrawal
  • Manchester terrorist bomb destroys part of city centre
  • Prince Charles divorces Princess Diana
  • Online auction eBay is commercially launched
  • The Photographers’ Gallery launch first Photography Prize In London
  • Brilliant! New art from London opens at walker Art Center, Minneapolis
  • Opening of GoMA (Gallery of Modern Art) in Glasgow
  • Spice Girls ‘girl power’ slogan takes Europe by storm
  • Anthony Minghella’s film The English Patient wins nine Academy Awards