The 2024 Turner Prize Exhibition Highlights

The Turner Prize celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, marking a return to Tate Britain in London for the first time in several years. First awarded in 1984, the Turner Prize is presented annually to a British artist who has created an outstanding exhibition or display of their work. This year's shortlist, lauded for being the most globally inclusive to date, features artists Pio Abad, Claudette Johnson, Jasleen Kaur, and Delaine Le Bas. Since its inception, the Turner Prize has been awarded to some of the most influential figures in contemporary art, including luminaries such as Damien Hirst, Chris Ofili, Sir Steven McQueen, Sir Grayson Perry, and Rachel Whiteread.

Image Credits: Jasleen Kaur, Alter Altar, Tate Britain, Turner Prize Exhibition 2024

This Years Shortlist

Pio Abad’s artistic practice is concerned with the personal and political entanglements of objects. His wide-ranging body of work encompassing drawing, painting, textiles, installation and text convey alternative or repressed historical events, offering counter narratives that draw out threads of complicity between incidents, ideologies and people. 

Jasleen Kaur is a multidisciplinary artist whose work seeks to make sense of what is out of view or withheld. She is drawn to plurality, declassifications and polyphony, often incorporating textiles and other materials to create immersive installations that reflect personal and collective narratives. Her main interest being tailored to how family intimacies meet wider sociopolitical structures.

Delaine Le Bas is a British artist and activist of Romani descent, known for her mixed-media works that explore issues of race, identity, and the experiences of marginalised communities. Her art often interweaves a wide range of traditional and contemporary techniques to reference her own heritage and simultaneously advocate for social justice. Delaine draws on the transient qualities of modern materials to further enrich her narratives and space.

Claudette Johnson is a visual artist noted for her large-scale works and involvement with the BLK Art Group, of which she was a founding member. Her recent works in oil, oil stick, and egg tempera convey an unmistakable presence, compensating for the persistent distortions and erasures that obscure the Black figure in art.

Image Credits: Claudette Johnson, Tate Britian, Turner Prize Exhibition 2024

The Exhibition

The trail of exhibition spaces begins with the work of Pio Abad. Abad titles his exhibition To Those Sitting in Darkness, in reference to Mark Twain's satirical essay To the Person Sitting in Darkness (1901), which criticises the U.S. conquest of the Philippines, where Abad was born. Initially, the spectators' gaze is drawn to the large-scale sculpture laid across the floor, named Kiss the Hand You Cannot Bite (2019). The piece, along with other drawings was created in collaboration with his wife, Frances Wadsworth. Emulating Imelda Marcos' excessive 30-carat ruby, diamond, and emerald bracelet, the sculpture reflects on a hoard of jewellery stolen from the Filipino people by the Marcoses in the 1980s. Through a process of forensic reconstruction and critical fabulation, he addresses broader issues in Filipino political history, particularly those stemming from places of oppression and corruption. Surrounded by Abad's drawings, an array of museum artefacts are on display across the room. Through the curation of the space they take on a new context, he describes them as icons of colonial and personal grief, with stories to be shared.

The following room sees Jasleen Kaur's installation-filled space. Kaur codes everyday, mass-produced objects with cultural symbols and imagery. With a focus on assimilation, the room is accompanied by a soundscape of the artist's voice combined with a car sound system echoing traditional Sufi music. Jasleen describes her relationship to music as not only spiritual but anti-imperial. Most visually striking is the red vintage Ford Escort covered in a four-metre crocheted doily, positioned towards the end of her space. Arguably this instillation is the most blatant juxtaposition of cultural memory against consumer politics for viewers to absorb.

Image Credits: Delaine LeBas, Tate Britain, Turner Prize Exhbition 2024

The subsequent space exhibits Delaine Le Bas' layered installation. An immediate shift in tone is evident in this environment, compared to the lighter atmosphere of the previous rooms. Delaine has veiled her space with immersive, interwoven paintings, fabrics, and a play on sound and light. She explains her interest in creating different doorways, which she successfully achieves through her use of reflective foil, calico, and organdie covering the walls. Embedded with feminist mythologies, the installations explore the journey from chaos to reflection. Titled Incipit Vita Nova, which translates from Latin to thus begins a new life, Delaine expressed that the wanted to illustrate how the journey from turmoil to calm can be found. Through the progression and manipulation of colour and light, the message of her piece comes to life, with viewers leaving her space surrounded by installations radiating sanguine undertones.

In the final space hangs a collection of paintings by Claudette Johnson, her large-scale figures filling the room and extending to the edges of the frame. Her entry focuses closely on the content within the frames in contrast to the levels of instillation and sculpture seen in the previous rooms. She explains that she finds the boundaries of how a figure sits exciting, reflecting on the malleability and adaptability of identity. Through delicate and densely worked brushstrokes, she aims to evoke a feeling of living presence in her work. This is heightened by the alignment of her subjects' gazes, which are purposefully directed: some looking out toward the viewer, others glancing into the periphery.

Each artist offers a distinctive interpretation on the space, reflecting their diverse personal experiences and socio-political commentaries. We look forward to following the continuation of the prize and congratulate all the finalists on their success.

The winner of the Turner Prize will be announced on December 3rd

Listings information

Turner Prize 2024

25 September 2024 – 16 February 2025

Tate Britain, Millbank, London, SW1P 4RG

Open daily 10.00–18.00

Free for Members. Join at tate.org.uk/members