Turner Prize Show Opens at MIMA with Four Shortlisted Artists — SkimNews
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- The Turner Prize exhibition opened at Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA) with four shortlisted artists: Kira Freije, Simeon Barclay, Marguerite Humeau, and Tanoa Sasraku.
- Kira Freije occupies her own floor with 33 lifesize steampunk cyborg statues set in a vaporous apocalyptic wasteland, physically separated from the other rooms because the watery mist could damage their fragile materials.
- Simeon Barclay's installation features giant photographs of a man reading a tabloid blaring "Leave 'em to die," a neon sign and a labyrinth leading to a central living-room-like space, with his recorded voice reading poetry denouncing hardened working-class masculinity.
- Marguerite Humeau's sprawling sculpture The Holder of Wasp Venom is built from natural beeswax, microcrystalline wax, pigments, a 150-year-old walnut, handblown glass and wasp venom, accompanied by a soundscape of high-pitched warbles, heartbeat pulses and elephantine bellows.
- Tanoa Sasraku shows a large brown abstract agglomeration of textures alongside a tabletop of glass paperweights holding tiny bottles of dark viscous liquid, which the reviewer reads as a protest against the oil industry.
- The reviewer compared Freije's installation to Dante's Inferno and Rodin's Gates of Hell, calling her "a great modern artist" and describing this as "a classy year for the Turner" despite reservations about Barclay, Humeau and Sasraku.
Why it matters: The Turner Prize is one of the art world's highest-profile awards, and staging it at MIMA continues the prize's effort to bring contemporary art beyond London. The reviewer's strong endorsement of Freije — citing her cyborg figures as meditations on 'the desperate nature of being human' — gives her visible momentum among this year's four contenders heading into the winner announcement.
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