TURNER PRIZE SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED
The shortlist for the 2006 Turner Prize has been announced, featuring a group of artists who are rather fresh, especially to U.S. audiences: 38-year-old Tomma Abts, an abstract painter who has showed at the Wrong Gallery and is presently represented by greengrassi; 35-year-old video artist Phil Collins, last seen in New York with an exhibition at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery featuring disaffected youths from the streets of Istanbul belting out karaoke renditions of songs by The Smiths; 33-year-old mixed-media artist Mark Titchner, known fohttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifr drawing on billboard art and corporate logos; and 41-year-old Rebecca Warren, who is represented by Matthew Marks and creates voluptuous, blob-like sculptures of women.The British tabloid press has, rather predictably, latched onto the big breasts of Warren’s sculptures as this year’s scandal, referring to the artist as a “pervy potter” (though if an obsession with outsized breasts be a crime, its hard to imagine the British tabloid press being in a position to say anything about it). Fans can judge for themselves when an exhibition of work by the finalists opens at the Tate, Oct. 3, 2006–Jan. 21, 2007. The 2006 Turner jury consists of Lynn Barber, Margot Heller, Matthew Higgs, Andrew Renton and Tate director Nicholas Serota, and announces the winner of the £25,000 prize on Dec. 4, 2006.
