Turner Prize 2023

Four very different artists are contending for this year’s prize – Jesse Darling, Ghislaine Leung, Rory Pilgrim and Barbara Walker – with subjects including the Windrush scandal, our dysfunctional world and mental healthcare

Barbara Walker, installation view, Turner Prize 2023, Towner Eastbourne. Photo: Angus Mill.

Towner Eastbourne
28 September 2023 – 14 April 2024

by BETH WILLIAMSON

The Turner Prize is a bit like a toddler having a tantrum – we can rarely work out quite what is behind it all but, somehow, we get through the experience and feel better equipped for the next time it comes around. The lineup for 2023 is no exception and I will come to the four shortlisted artists in a moment. First, however, it is worth saying something about this year’s venue. Towner Eastbourne is in its centenary year and hosting the Turner Prize is certainly a coup for this gallery on the south coast, something of a highlight among its many celebrations to mark its centenary and maybe a catalyst for change in the town. Towner’s various developments in recent years have been ambitious and other related projects in the area, such as the arts, culture and heritage space Black Robin Farm, show tremendous promise. Coinciding with the Turner Prize 2023 there is a wraparound cultural programme, Eastbourne Alive, that aims to enliven underused spaces in the town through public art, dance and music. How successful that programme is remains to be seen, but the Turner Prize, if nothing else, shows that Towner can consistently punch above its weight.

Jesse Darling, installation view, Turner Prize 2023, Towner Eastbourne. Photo: Angus Mill.

Jesse Darling was nominated for his solo exhibitions No Medals No Ribbons at Modern Art Oxford, and Enclosures at Camden Art Centre in London. I didn’t see the Camden exhibition, but No Medals No Ribbons was a deeply affective show that essentially evoked the fragile and contingent nature of human life in a dysfunctional world full of brokenness, fear and failure. Darling’s Turner Prize show, however, is quite different, with new and recent works rising up as if careering around the space in a failed attempt to control our movements. Not so much objects as lines in space, there is a sense of the provisional to Darling’s installation that is erratic and unsettling.

Jesse Darling, installation view, Turner Prize 2023, Towner Eastbourne. Photo: Angus Mill.

Gravity Road (2020), the standout work from his Modern Art Oxford show, is present only in a much-reduced form in the Towner, somehow squeezed in and unable to convey the exhilaration of its predecessor. It isn’t all problems, there are moments of humour and light-heartedness, too, but it doesn’t match the intelligence, surprise and poignancy of No Medals No Ribbons.

Ghislaine Leung, installation view, Turner Prize 2023, Towner Eastbourne. Photo: Angus Mill.

Ghislaine Leung was nominated for her solo exhibition Fountains at Simian in Copenhagen. Leung is interested in looking critically at the social, political and spatial conditions of art production, presentation and circulation. With a focus on what she calls “score-based artworks”, Leung provides scores or instructions that are realised by the gallery. Here, the central piece is “a fountain installed in the exhibition space to cancel sound” and the circulation of water spills out on to the gallery floor. In Towner’s realisation of Fountain, there is also a baby monitor broadcasting to the exhibition space from the art store and a line of toys borrowed from a public library.

Ghislaine Leung, Hours, 2022, installation view, Turner Prize 2023, Towner Eastbourne. Photo: Angus Mill.

One of the most interesting aspects of Leung’s installation is a wall drawing, Hours (2022), representing the hours that she is able to devote to working in her studio. In her multiple roles as artist and mother, the dedicated work hours are few (Thursday 9am to 4pm and Friday 9am to 4pm). Yet life isn’t all work, and the industrial metal pipes of Fountain gesture to public recreational spaces reimagined within the architecture of the building. While I admire Leung’s approach in Fountains, I experienced the work as rather removed, as if it holds the viewer at arm’s length and you get the feeling something is being held back.

Barbara Walker, installation view, Turner Prize 2023, Towner Eastbourne. Photo: Angus Mill.

Barbara Walker’s nomination was for her presentation Burden of Proof at Sharjah Biennial 15. Her monumental charcoal portraits of individuals affected by the Windrush scandal are drawn directly on to the wall, entwined with her hand-drawn reproductions of documents that evidence their right to remain in the UK: army form B108C – a temporary certificate of discharge or transfer issued to a soldier AA Williams; a Life in the UK Test pass notification letter issued to Glenda Caesar; a personal reference for Michael Braithwaite; a Home Office certificate of registration for UH Clarke.

Barbara Walker, installation view, Turner Prize 2023, Towner Eastbourne. Photo: Angus Mill.

What comes through is the considerable state control imposed on people’s lives and how that plays out in complex diasporic identities. Walker’s virtuoso drawings are a powerful testament to the lives they recognise.

Rory Pilgrim, installation view, Turner Prize 2023, Towner Eastbourne. Photo: Angus Mill.

Rory Pilgrim was nominated for the commission Rafts at the Serpentine and Barking town hall, and a live performance of the work at Cadogan Hall, London. Rafts rethinks access to, and what constitutes, care. The installation at Towner comprises a film and supporting artworks by Pilgrim and their collaborators. As an artist, they are interested in how people come together and communicate in different ways, and how sharing personal experience might effect social change. The film Rafts (2022) reflects on the symbol of the raft and what it might mean through explorations in song, music and poetry. Joined by singers Declan Rowe John, Robyn Haddon and Kayden Fearon, alongside members of Barking and Dagenham Youth Dance, the film and its contributors interrogate ideas of home, safety, journey, sustenance and hope. The raft becomes a symbol for sanctuary, a nurturing space where individuals can find belonging and connectivity. Pilgrim describes the work as “making connections between mental health, recovery and stories of support”. The project is driven by shared dialogues that flourish through collaboration and workshops.

Rory Pilgrim, installation view, Turner Prize 2023, Towner Eastbourne. Photo: Angus Mill.

Watching this film, we are surrounded by paintings, drawings and sculptures (including artwork by Eddie Paggett and Mark Jones) that further extend its themes. There are undoubtedly elements of sentimentality in Rafts, but that can be forgiven because this is radical care and kindness in action.

With four such different artists and artworks, it is difficult to know how the expert jury put together such a diverse group. The winner of this year’s prize won’t be announced until 5 December and the exhibition itself runs until April 2024 so there is plenty of time to visit and draw your own conclusions.