Songs of Lament: Susan Philipsz wins The 2010 Turner Prize

Like the banshee of Irish and Scottish legend, Scottish artist Susan Philipsz keens songs of lamentation and loss that haunt those within hearing of the “sound sculptures” centered on her voice. For those unforgettable installations, Philipsz has won the 2010 Turner Prize, the most prestigious British contemporary art award and one of the biggest life-changing achievements an artist can realize today. Her win marks a strange milestone for The Turner Prize in that the intangible medium of sound has joined film, sculpture, and painting—the medium of choice for the prize’s namesake, J.M.W. Turner—as acceptable conduits for creativity. Some see crossing that barrier as going too far and raise their own hue and cry. But outside of the prize-awarding festivities, a different song of lamentation could be heard—the mourning over the impending death of the arts in England. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Songs of Lament."

[Image: Susan Philipsz. Lowlands 2008/2010. Clyde Walkway, Glasgow. © The artist, courtesy Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art. Photo: Eoghan McTigue.]

The Bold and the Beautiful: Modern Art and Subtlety

A recent feature piece in The New York Times on the 25th Paris Biennale, currently at the Grand Palais until September 22^nd, made the bold statement that “[f]uture historians may retain [it]… as a watershed in the history of Western culture.” The author, Souren Melikian, bases that prediction on the belief that the biennale “mirrors better than any event on the world scene our new approach to art.” “Interest in subtle nuances is receding as our attention span shortens,” Melikian goes on to argue. “Awareness of this trend probably accounts for the recent art trade emphasis on clarity and monumentality and the striking progression of 20th-century modernity.” In Melikian and others’ minds, the modern mind loves modern art, and modern art is nothing if not bold. Subtlety is for squares, or at least the generations of the past. From here on, will bold and beautiful always be linked? Or is there hope for subtler treasures? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "The Bold and the Beautiful."

Contingency Plan: The Art of Richard Wright

Unhappy with his art, Richard Wright destroyed all of his paintings in the late 1980s and gave up painting altogether for two years. Returning to the art world from that self-imposed exile, Wright began painting unique minimalist works in the corners of galleries and other spaces, only to have them painted over right after the exhibition. “Wright’s practice is always framed by an embrace of contingencies,” writes Russell Ferguson in his essay in the first monograph on Wright, titled Richard Wright. “The work is formed out of a concatenation of elements that come together as a kind of performance: the ‘live situation.’” Although nothing of his work from before 1999 survives, Wright’s painterly performances live on in photography and in the memories of those who experienced them personally. The power of those perceptions helped Wright earn the prestigious 2009 Turner Prize. Wright fully accepts the contingencies of time and place in his art and arrives at a plan that is both beautiful to look at and mystical to behold. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Contingency Plan."

[Image: Richard Wright. Untitled (03.03.08). 2008. Gouache and watercolor on paper. 24 x 33 inches (61.2 x 83.7 cm).]

[Many thanks to Rizzoli for providing me with the image above and a review copy of Richard Wright.]