Younger, older, left field, established, overlooked, revitalised, expected, surprising: the annual Turner prize shortlist has over the decades been a mix of the puzzling and the predictable. The shortlists, and the jurors who select them, don’t come out of nowhere. More than a signal to artistic fashion and passing fads, the annual Turner exhibition is a sign of the times. It goes with and against the grain. Less now about big names and artists who are already validated and in the public eye, it gets more fragile and more contentious as it also becomes more unpredictable and more interesting.
Post-Brexit, post-Covid, working in a situation that is ever more fraught economically, and more socially divided and divisive, it is important that the prize reflects our situation, as this year’s shortlist does.
