Duncan Campbell. Courtesy Tate Britain.
Dublin-born, Glasgow-based video artist Duncan Campbell, 42, is the winner of the 2014 Turner Prize. He takes home nearly $42,000, while runners-up Ciara Phillips, James Richards and Tris Vonna-Michell each receive approximately $8,500.
The prestigious contemporary art prize, which celebrated its 30th anniversary this year, is awarded annually by the Tate, London, to a Britain-born or Britain-based artist under 50. Nominees are selected based on work or an exhibition produced during the previous year. Past winners include Damien Hirst, Antony Gormley and, in 2013, French artist Laure Prouvost.
Campbell was nominated for his film It for Others (2013), presented in the show “Scotland + Venice” during the 55th Venice Biennale. The 54-minute video responds to the 1953 film Statues Also Die by French filmmakers Ghislain Cloquet, Chris Marker and Alan Resnais, which explores colonialism’s role in the “death” of African art. Archival footage is joined with new material in Campbell’s piece, including a Michael Clark-choreographed dance sequence inspired by Karl Marx’s Das Kapital and an investigation into the construction of political messages during the Troubles in the Republic of Ireland.
Penelope Curtis, director of Tate Britain, chaired the 2014 jury, which included Dirk Snauwaert, artistic director of Wiels, Brussels; Stefan Kalmár, executive director of Artists Space, New York; Helen Legg, director of SpikeIsland, Bristol; and Sarah McCrory, director of Glasgow International. In a release, the jury commended Campbell’s “exceptional dedication to making a work which speaks about the construction of value and meaning in ways that are topical and compelling.”
Campbell is the fourth graduate of The Glasgow School of Art’s MFA program to win the prize in the last 10 years.
Work by this year’s nominees is on view at Tate Britain, London (through Jan. 4).
