The winner of the Turner prize 2023 will be announced at the seaside on Tuesday 5 December. This is one of Tate’s colonising years, when it sends the prize out to benefit the provinces. Eastbourne follows Liverpool, Gateshead, Derry, Glasgow, Hull, Margate and Coventry in receiving the annual honour – or burden – of mounting the exhibition and footing the bill. Tate pays only for the prize itself.
The galleries have to take whatever the jury selects. This year, after sundry collectives, community art groups and the distribution of the money to 10 different beneficiaries during Covid, the shortlist has reverted to an old-fashioned quartet of artists. Each has one of the Towner’s generous and light-filled spaces, and the combined show is generally more affecting, skilful and sincere than in recent years. Alas, half of it tends to the winsome or pious.
