Art
The New Masters: conversations with the 2019 Sobey Art Award finalists – CBC.ca
LISTEN: The New Masters: The 2019 Sobey Art Award, Part 1 | The New Masters: The 2019 Sobey Art Award, Part 2
The annual Sobey Art Award is Canada’s most prestigious prize for contemporary artists. Established in 2002, the award honours Canadian artists 40 years of age or under, who have exhibited their work in a public or commercial art gallery within 18 months of being nominated.
The Sobey Art Foundation and the National Gallery of Canada announced filmmaker Stephanie Comilang as the 2019 winner of the $100,000 grand prize.
Past winners include some of the country’s most celebrated talents: Brian Jungen, the late Annie Pootoogook, David Altmejd and 2018 winner, Kapwani Kiwanga.
The 2019 award had four other finalists: Nicolas Grenier, Kablusiak, Anne Low and D’Arcy Wilson. Each received $25,000.
The other longlisted artists received $2,000. In addition to monetary awards, three artists from the longlist were selected by the jury to take part in the Sobey Art Award Residencies Program.
The 2019 winner and remaining four finalists sat down with IDEAS producer Mary Lynk to discuss their work.
Stephanie Comilang
[embedded content] Stephanie Comilang is a filmmaker and the winner of the 2019 Sobey Art Award.
Filmmaker and winner of the 2019 Sobey Art Award Stephanie Comilang calls her films “science fiction documentaries.” The video and installation artist says the term evokes a clear picture of two opposing concepts.
“I’m interested in real-life stories and being told these stories by the people themselves,” she said. “That is usually a starting point for me: Listening to a truth that is theirs and then shifting the narrative to create a new one.”
Comilang says she often starts her art with a real-life situation and then creates other narratives on top of it.
“Some of the main themes that I explore are grounded in home usually — that’s my starting point,” she told the National Gallery of Canada. “I think about home as sort of a morpheus thing — this kind of fluid thing because movement is so kind of common in the way that we live our lives.”
She brought two video installations of two different migrant narratives to the Sobey exhibition: Yesterday in the Years 1886 & 2017 and Lumapit Sa Akin, Paraiso (Come To Me, Paradise). Both pieces contain the ghost/drone character, Paradise.
She says that she erases time in her work and that it makes it more interesting.
“I think coming from the past or the future and melding that with present time is something that I do,” she said.
Comilang’s films are often rooted in the process of dispersion and being diasporic. Her works show how migrants create their own space, with a focus on women.
“I’ve been interested in how the female figure, not the body, but maybe the female spirit moves through space, whether she be a migrant, a ghost, a drone or a shaman,” she said.
Comilang has also had an interesting and unlikely past. She grew up in Toronto and her father was an Elvis-impersonator. She also observed how the Filipino diaspora defined her own space within the domestic and public realm.
“Home is this thing that can change. Coming from immigrant parents, it’s something I think about a lot,” she said. “Immigration, migration is very, very common, but I think it’s something that really shapes how I view things — how I walk through the world.”
D’Arcy Wilson
[embedded content] D’Arcy Wilson’s interdisciplinary art laments past and ongoing colonial interactions with the natural world, from her perspective as a descendent of European settlers in Canada.
D’Arcy Wilson‘s best known work looks back at colonial interactions with the natural world through her lens as a descendent of European settlers in Canada.
“I have inherited an understanding of nature that comes from that colonial umbrella, and I think in my work, I’m trying to unlearn it, to critique it but also to question where does my body fit in nature,” she told the National Gallery of Canada.
“I’m part of a culture that has been very destructive and how can I then now enter into the natural world as separate from that past. My body is connected to that legacy.”
Wilson says she processes her ideas through material production but that she is also drawn to labour-intensive practices.
“Time and labour are relatable to diverse audiences, and so the material practice becomes another way to connect with the viewer.”
She brought a version of her ongoing project The Memorialist to the Sobey Art Award exhibition.
The pieces’ persona is a pseudo-historian who covers the relatively obscure story of Andrew Downs’ Zoological Gardens. As the proprietor of the zoo, Downs constructed animal habitats within a forest. It was an early zoo on the edge of Halifax.
“This persona is more of a reflection of myself, created in order to unfold the complexities of this time period,” she said. “Andrew Downs referred to his zoological gardens as a memorial and he referred to himself as ‘The Memorialist.’ I’ve adopted the same name.”
She adds that she explores themes of care and harm in a lot of her work.
“I’ve been drawn to narratives that look at instances in which people of my culture have tried to do the right thing or care for nature but maybe ended up doing more harm than good.”
Kablusiak
[embedded content] Kablusiak is an Inuvialuk artist and curator based in Mohkinstsis (Calgary), and a board member of Stride Gallery (Mohkinstsis). They use art and humour to address cultural displacement.
Cultural displacement is often a hard topic to approach, but Kablusiak chooses instead to touch on the issue with humour to lighten the intensity of the emotion and use art as a coping mechanism.
The multidisciplinary Inuvialuk artist and curator thinks about the history of inuit art — specifically carvings, through sculptures.
“I’d like to make art without having to deal with the crushing weight of cultural identity and what that’s supposed to look like in today’s world.”
To determine which medium to use, Kablusiak relies on a concept.
“I have visual forms I often like to work with, as I feel they have set a precedent in my practice to represent certain things,” they said.
“But when I have a concept I want to see through, that concept will drive what form it will take in the real world.”
Kablusiak says the humour in the pieces come in subtle ways or in ways that could be relatable.
“I like to bank on the humour associated with absurdity. I choose it because humour is a marked way to deal with trauma, especially for Indigenous folks.”
Kablusiak brought a number of pieces to the Sobey Art Award exhibition, including some new works.
Anne Low
[embedded content] Anne Low uses sculpture, installation, textiles and printmaking to investigate how forms can detach themselves from their historical context and speak to contemporary subjects such as the domestic and the decorative.
As a sculpture artist, much of Anne Low‘s work is done at least in part by hand using a variety of methods, including weaving and textiles.
“I approach making sculpture through disciplines that are typically more associated with decorative art,” she said.
“I’m interested in material forms of knowledge production and the virtuosity of intelligence that exists within material practices that sit outside of the realm of art.”
Low’s work is often done alone in her studio and it is typically of a domestic or human scale. She says material culture, specifically weaving, is a way for her to produce meaning.
“I’m really interested in the encyclopedic skill and virtuosity of cloth that was woven in Europe prior to industrialization when everything was spun, woven and dyed by hand,” she told the National Gallery of Canada.
Her work is a process of translation and extrapolation that comes from her own research into material history.
“The work is always what is in front of the viewer, I’m not seeking to reference. I produce forms that are made now and as a result they can only be contemporary,” she added.
Low brought a group of sculptures, some new, to the Sobey Art Award.
“The exhibition as a form is central to what I do,” she said. “The works I have selected are being installed to produce meaning in relation to each other.”
Nicolas Grenier
[embedded content] Nicolas Grenier’s interest lies in the distorted connections between the many systems we inhabit — political, economic, cultural and social — and the principles or absence of principles at the root of these systems.
Nicolas Grenier says he mostly works with paintings, but also installations, videos, readings, performances, think tanks, participative workshops and new formats examining socio-economic dynamics.
He considers painting an “interesting medium” adding that it’s old and traditional with inherent qualities that keep it grounded.
“It is the most primary visual language, pigments on a flat surface, and to me it acts as a constant reminder of the temporality and physicality of our bodies,” he said.
“By contrast, the types of socio-political power dynamics that I often explore are rather intangible, diffused and abstract.”
Whether his work is a painting or lecture, Grenier says it’s always based on research. Recently, he was particularly involved with research on economic structures.
He adds that he can’t ignore that paintings are “limited by the problematic economy in which they exist.”
“Whatever income I will get from sales will be used to finance the long-term development of non-monetary economic systems that I am working on,” he said.
“I try to create an ecosystem in which both the artistic and the political dimensions of practice can respond to each other.”
He said that he has been trying to recalibrate where he goes with his work.
“I’ve been trying to construct new structures that are experiments in and of themselves on how an economy could be run, on how a social group could form, on how collaboration could exist between scientists, artists and economists.”
Produced by Mary Lynk.
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A Scottish artist who uses cars, worship bells and Irn-Bru in her work is among the nominees for this year’s Turner Prize.
Glasgow-born Jasleen Kaur’s work reflects her life growing up in the city’s Sikh community.
She is up for the prestigious art award, now in its 40th year, alongside Pio Abad, Claudette Johnson and Delaine Le Bas.
Turner Prize jury chairman Alex Farquharson described it as a “fantastic shortlist of artists”
Works by the nominated artists will go on show at London’s Tate Britain gallery from 25 September.
They will receive £10,000 each, while the winner, to be announced on 3 December, will get £25,000.
In a statement, Farquharson said: “All four make work that is full of life.
“They show how contemporary art can fascinate, surprise and move us, and how it can speak powerfully of complex identities and memories, often through the subtlest of details.
“In the Turner Prize’s 40th year, this shortlist proves that British artistic talent is as rich and vibrant as ever.”
The shortlisted artists are:
Pio Abad
Manila-born Abad’s solo exhibition To Those Sitting in Darkness at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford included drawings, etchings and sculptures that combined to “ask questions of museums”, according to the jury.
The 40-year-old, who works in London, reflects on colonial history and growing up in the Philippines, where his parents struggled against authoritarianism.
The title of his exhibit is a nod to Mark Twain’s 1901 essay To the Person Sitting In Darkness, which hit out at imperialism.
Jasleen Kaur
Kaur is on the list for Alter Altar at Tramway, Glasgow, which included family photos, an Axminster carpet, a classic Ford Escort covered in a giant doily, Irn-Bru and kinetic handbells.
The 37-year-old, who lives in London, had previously showcased her work at the Victoria and Albert Museum by looking at popular Indian cinema.
Delaine Le Bas
Worthing-born Le Bas is nominated for an exhibition titled Incipit Vita Nova. Here Begins The New Life/A New Life Is Beginning. Staged at the Secession art institute in Vienna, Austria, it saw painted fabrics hung, with theatrical costumes and sculptures also part of the exhibit.
The 58-year-old artist was inspired by the death of her grandmother and the history of the Roma people.
The jury said they “were impressed by the energy and immediacy present in this exhibition, and its powerful expression of making art in a time of chaos”.
Claudette Johnson
Manchester-born Johnson has been given the nod for her solo exhibition Presence at the Courtauld Gallery in London, and Drawn Out at Ortuzar Projects, New York.
She uses portraits of black women and men in a combination of pastels, gouache and watercolour, and was praised by the judges for her “sensitive and dramatic use of line, colour, space and scale to express empathy and intimacy with her subjects”.
Johnson, 65, was appointed an MBE in 2022 after being named on the New Year Honours list for her services to the arts.
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Turner Prize shortlist includes art showcasing Scottish Sikh community
A Scottish artist who uses cars, worship bells and Irn-Bru in her work is among the nominees for this year’s Turner Prize.
Glasgow-born Jasleen Kaur’s work reflects her life growing up in the city’s Sikh community.
She is up for the prestigious art award, now in its 40th year, alongside Pio Abad, Claudette Johnson and Delaine Le Bas.
Turner Prize jury chairman Alex Farquharson described it as a “fantastic shortlist of artists”
Works by the nominated artists will go on show at London’s Tate Britain gallery from 25 September.
They will receive £10,000 each, while the winner, to be announced on 3 December, will get £25,000.
In a statement, Farquharson said: “All four make work that is full of life.
“They show how contemporary art can fascinate, surprise and move us, and how it can speak powerfully of complex identities and memories, often through the subtlest of details.
“In the Turner Prize’s 40th year, this shortlist proves that British artistic talent is as rich and vibrant as ever.”
The shortlisted artists are:
Pio Abad
Manila-born Abad’s solo exhibition To Those Sitting in Darkness at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford included drawings, etchings and sculptures that combined to “ask questions of museums”, according to the jury.
The 40-year-old, who works in London, reflects on colonial history and growing up in the Philippines, where his parents struggled against authoritarianism.
The title of his exhibit is a nod to Mark Twain’s 1901 essay To the Person Sitting In Darkness, which hit out at imperialism.
Jasleen Kaur
Kaur is on the list for Alter Altar at Tramway, Glasgow, which included family photos, an Axminster carpet, a classic Ford Escort covered in a giant doily, Irn-Bru and kinetic handbells.
The 37-year-old, who lives in London, had previously showcased her work at the Victoria and Albert Museum by looking at popular Indian cinema.
Delaine Le Bas
Worthing-born Le Bas is nominated for an exhibition titled Incipit Vita Nova. Here Begins The New Life/A New Life Is Beginning. Staged at the Secession art institute in Vienna, Austria, it saw painted fabrics hung, with theatrical costumes and sculptures also part of the exhibit.
The 58-year-old artist was inspired by the death of her grandmother and the history of the Roma people.
The jury said they “were impressed by the energy and immediacy present in this exhibition, and its powerful expression of making art in a time of chaos”.
Claudette Johnson
Manchester-born Johnson has been given the nod for her solo exhibition Presence at the Courtauld Gallery in London, and Drawn Out at Ortuzar Projects, New York.
She uses portraits of black women and men in a combination of pastels, gouache and watercolour, and was praised by the judges for her “sensitive and dramatic use of line, colour, space and scale to express empathy and intimacy with her subjects”.
Johnson, 65, was appointed an MBE in 2022 after being named on the New Year Honours list for her services to the arts.
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Claudette Johnson has been nominated for this year’s Turner prize for her work, which includes a portrait of the African-American slavery abolitionist Sarah Parker Remond commissioned as part of the Guardian’s award-winning Cotton Capital series.
Pio Abad, Johnson, Jasleen Kaur and Delaine Le Bas will compete for the £25,000 prize, while the nominated artists will each collect £10,000 as the prize returns to Tate Britain for the first time in six years.
Colonialism, migration, nationalism and identity politics are the key themes running through the 40th edition of the Turner prize, which the jury described as showing contemporary British art “is appealing and dynamic as ever”.
Alex Farquharson, the director of Tate Britain and chair of the Turner prize jury, said this year’s nominees were exploring ideas of identity and would be exhibited from 25 September, before the jury’s final choice.
He said: “This year’s shortlisted artists can be broadly characterised as exploring questions of identity, autobiography, community and the self in relation to memory, or history or myth.”
The Turner prize, regarded as one of the art world’s most prestigious awards, is presented to an artist born or working in Britain for an outstanding exhibition or presentation of their work over the previous year.
Abad was nominated for his solo exhibition To Those Sitting in Darkness at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, with the jury commenting on the “precision and elegance” of his work, which takes its title from a Mark Twain poem of a similar name that critiques American imperialism the Philippines, his homeland.
The show also contains references to the Benin Bronzes, after Abad discovered that the punitive expedition of 1897 – during which British troops sacked Benin City and looted thousands of objects, of which about 900 are in the British Museum’ – set off from his home, Woolwich, in south London.
Johnson was nominated for her solo Presence exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery, which the Guardian said “brilliantly questions depictions of non-white figures by such revered painters as Gauguin and Picasso”. She was also recognised for her New York show, Drawn Out, at Ortuzar Projects, which included her Redmond portrait.
She is the latest black female artist who emerged in the Black Art Movement of the 1980s to be recognised by the Turner prize, following in the footsteps of Lubaina Himid (2017 winner) and Veronica Ryan (2022), while Ingrid Pollard and Barbara Walker have both been nominated.
The jury said Johnson had been nominated because of the “renewal of her practice”, after she stopped making work in the 1990s, and the fact she was still “taking risks and trying new forms of practice”.
Kaur’s work in the exhibition Alter Altar, which was shown at Tramway in Glasgow, features sculptures and soundscapes, including a red Ford Escort covered in a huge doily, which references her father’s first car and ideas of migration and belonging in Britain.
Kaur grew up in Glasgow’s Sikh community in Pollokshields, and the jury said the exhibition was a breakout show that was “generous, celebratory, moving and alive to timely issues, speaking imaginatively to how we might live together in a world increasingly marked by nationalism, division and social control”.
Le Bas’s work, shown at the Vienna Secession exhibition, was described as a “response to social and political turmoil” and includes immersive performance art with theatrical costumes and sculptures.
Farquharson said there was a chance the show may travel to Bradford during its City of Culture year, following the precedent set by Coventry, which hosted the awards in 2021, although that was still “to be confirmed”.
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