TATE BRITAIN


TATE BRITAIN

Turner Prize

The Turner Prize: Year by Year

2000

Winner:
Wolfgang Tillmans

Shortlist:

Jury:

  • Jan Debbaut, Director of Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
  • Keir McGuinness, Chairman of Patrons of New Art
  • Julia Peyton-Jones, Director of the Serpentine Gallery, London
  • Matthew Slotover, Publisher of Frieze magazine
  • Nicholas Serota, Director, Tate

How British is the Turner Prize?

The 2000 shortlist was generally recognised as refreshingly 'sensation-free'. With only one of the four artists born in Britain much of the debate concentrated on nationality. The lack of headline-grabbing works in the exhibition together with the lower public profiles of the nominees, prompted discussion about the demise of the so-called Young British Artists. This idea was reinforced by the Prize being awarded to German-born Wolfgang Tillmans, the first artist working with photography to win. In this year, Tate Britain was established as a gallery devoted to British art from 1500 to the present day and Tate Modern opened its doors.

Wolfgang Tillmans's room in the 2000 exhibition © Tate Photography Wolfgang Tillmans's room in the 2000 exhibition
© Tate Photography View full image
The 2000 Turner Prize poster The 2000 Turner Prize poster
The 2000 Turner Prize nomination form The 2000 Turner Prize nomination form

Quotes

‘How long must non-native artists live and work in Britain before they shed the label ‘foreign’? … Yet the demographics of this year’s line-up chime nicely with Tate Britain’s general desire to test the parameters of ‘British’ art.’

– Rachel Withers, Art Forum, September 2000

‘All the artists here work in Britain. We don’t just export the YBA generation. The cultural life of Britain is immeasurably strengthened by those from abroad who have chosen to work here. We need different voices, different attitudes, different ways of looking at the world.’

– Adrian Searle, The Guardian, November 2000

‘We have never confined the idea of British art to those who have been born in this country. At a time when there is a great deal of debate about public migrants, we should be in the forefront of those pointing out the huge contribution they have made to this country … If the Turner Prize had been around in the 1740s, I hope that Canaletto would have been on the shortlist’.

– Nicholas Serota, Director, Tate, 2000

Other News

  • World celebrates third millennium
  • George W. Bush wins US elections despite accusations of electoral fraud
  • Napster, a free system for downloading music, is launched
  • May Day violence erupts in London
  • Ken Livingstone elected first Mayor of London
  • London Eye and Millennium Bridge open
  • Tate Gallery is renamed ‘Tate Britain’
  • Tate Modern opens
  • Launch of the arts award Beck’s Futures by the ICA, open to any contemporary emerging young artist
  • First series of Big Brother airs