Turner Prize goes to shed dismantling artist
An artist who dismantled a shed then put it back together again has won the £25,000 Turner Prize.
Simon Starling is the recipient of the art world’s most famous – and most controversial – award.
His work Shedboatshed (Mobile Architecture No 2) started life as a wooden shack in the Swiss town of Schweizerhalle.
Starling took it apart, turned it into a boat and paddled it seven miles down the Rhine to Basel, where he rebuilt it.
Another work, Tabernas Desert Run, involved him crossing the Spanish desert on a hydrogen and oxygen-powered bicycle.
The water produced as a waste product of the bike was used to paint a watercolour illustration of a cactus.
And in Burn-Time 2000, he made a two-foot high scale model of a German museum, filled it with chickens, then burned it to provide fuel to cook their eggs.
Starling, 38, describes his work as “the physical manifestation of a thought process”.
Curators at the Tate, where his work is displayed, say it “counters the illusory nature of globalisation and capitalist exchange”.
Starling had been the bookies’ favourite to win the prize, which was announced at a ceremony at Tate Britain in London by Culture Minister David Lammy.
He received a cheque for £25,000 and the other three shortlisted artists received £5,000, all provided by sponsors Gordon’s Gin.
Born in Epsom, Surrey, Starling studied at Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham and Glasgow School of Art. He lives and works in Berlin and Glasgow.
The shortlisted artists were Gillian Carnegie, for her series of “bum paintings”; Darren Almond, whose work included a video installation of his widowed grandmother reminiscing about her honeymoon in Blackpool; and Jim Lambie, a DJ who decorated a floor with psychedelic designs.
The work of this year’s contenders was considered to be far tamer than in previous years.
Past winners include Chris Ofili – known for using elephant dung in his art - Damien Hirst and transvestite potter Grayson Perry.
Starling said he was "a bit flabbergasted'' to win.
He said of his artwork: “I don’t like to be thought of as eccentric because that’s not what my work is about. It’s a serious business on many levels.”
Being nominated for the Turner Prize has won him many new fans, he revealed.
“I had a fantastic little poem from an elderly woman in St Albans about sheds. That’s the thing about the Turner Prize – you have 80,000 people looking at your work. People engage with it and enjoy it, and that’s special.”
Starling said his work was all about anti-globalisation.
But asked if he had any qualms about accepting a £25,000 cheque from the art establishment, he replied: “Absolutely not, no.”
Explaining what Shedboatshed means, Starling said: ``It's a bit of mobile architecture. It's an attempt to make an artwork, which is very ergonomic and easy on the environment. It's a very simple idea.
“I went on a little expedition up the Rhine to find a structure I could use for a project and I found this shed. It had a paddle on the side so it was just an incredible piece of luck.
“It’s about slowing things down, about trying to retard this incredible speed at which we live.”
And the artist revealed plans for his next major project: throwing a replica Henry Moore sculpture into Lake Ontario.
He explained: “Zebra mussels have been introduced into the lake and they are taking over and transforming the ecosystem.
“There is a Henry Moore sculpture in Toronto called Warrior With A Shield so I thought it would be nice to throw it into the lake, leave it for six months, grow lots of mussels on it, then hang it in a gallery.”
