Scottish artist Jasleen Kaur has has won the 2024 Turner Prize for her solo exhibition that saw a giant doily placed over a Ford Escort.
Kaur, 36, the youngest artist on this year’s shortlist, was nominated for her work titled Altar Altar, which was displayed at the Tramway in Glasgow along with several other sculptures and soundscapes.
The striking work included a red Ford Escort which was partially covered in a giant white doily, and was announced the winner by Happy Valley actor James Norton in a ceremony held at Tate Britain on Tuesday evening.
The five jury members chose Kaur for ‘her ability to gather different voices through unexpected and playful combinations of material, from Irn-Bru to family photographs and a vintage Ford Escort, locating moments of resilience and possibility’.
Kaur’s exhibition featured worship bells, Sufi Islamic devotional music, Indian harmonium tunes, and pop records, while a suspended ceiling made of blue glass, which is strewn with objects including half-drunk bottles of Irn-Bru, Scottish pound notes, a long wool scarf and fruit pastels, hangs above.
The jury also said Kaur’s work spoke to timely issues, ‘speaking imaginatively to how we might live together in a world increasingly marked by nationalism and division’.
Kaur, who was born in Glasgow but lives and works in London, later used her speech to advocate for the people in Palestine
She said that through Altar Altar, she wanted to ‘echo the calls of the protesters outside’ who had gathered after an open letter urged the Tate to cut ties with ‘organisations complicit in what the UN and ICJ are finally getting closer to saying is a genocide of the Palestinian people’.
Jasleen Kaur was announced as the winner of the Turner Prize 2024 at Tate Britain, London, on Tuesday evening
The striking work included a red Ford Escort which was partially covered in a giant white doily
Kaur’s exhibition featured worship bells, Sufi Islamic devotional music, Indian harmonium tunes, and pop records
‘This is not a radical demand,’ Kaur said on stage.
‘This should not risk an artist’s career or safety. We’re trying to build consensus that the ties to these organisations are unethical, just as artists did with Sackler,’ she said, referencing the family linked to the opioid epidemic.
‘I’ve been wondering why artists are required to dream up liberation in the gallery but when that dream meets life we are shut down.
‘I want the separation between the expression of politics in the gallery and the practice of politics in life to disappear.
‘I want the institution to understand that if you want us inside, you need to listen to us outside.’
In her winner’s speech, Kaur also payed thanks to ‘the artists, the poets, the parents, the students who have shown me the slow and meticulous work of organising and world building’ as well as ‘the folk who orient their lives towards freedom in practice, not theory; who advocate for life, not death’.
Kaur concluded her speech by calling for a ceasefire, adding: ‘Free Palestine.’
BBC reporter Katie Razzall had to apologise to viewers after Kaur used a swear word in her speech.
In her winner’s speech, Kaur payed thanks to ‘the artists, the poets, the parents, the students who have shown me the slow and meticulous work of organising and world building’
Kaur concluded her speech by calling for a ceasefire, adding: ‘Free Palestine’
A suspended ceiling made of blue glass, which is strewn with objects including half-drunk bottles of Irn-Bru, Scottish pound notes, a long wool scarf and fruit pastels, hung above the exhibition
The jury congratulated all four nominated artists for each of their ‘eloquent and distinctive presentations’, which they said were ‘representative of the high standard of British art at this present moment’.
The jury added: ‘The artists this year embed an intimate sense of self, family and community within the circulation of cultures, beliefs and ideas.’
This year the arts prize, named after British painter JMW Turner, which awards £25,000 to its winner, is celebrating its 40th anniversary.
Established in 1984, the prize is awarded each year to a British artist for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work.
Previous recipients include sculptor Sir Anish Kapoor, in 1991, artist Damien Hirst, 1995, and filmmaker Sir Steve McQueen, 1999.
In 2025, the prize will be presented in Bradford at Cartwright Hall art gallery, marking the 250th anniversary of Turner’s birth.
The exhibition of the four shortlisted artists – Pio Abad, Claudette Johnson, Delaine Le Bas, and Kaur – is at Tate Britain until February 16, 2025.
