INTERFACE

REVIEW

The Northern Art Prize

Leeds Art Gallery
22 November– 10 February

Reviewed by: Amelia Crouch

The Northern Art Prize is a two headed beast: one head an exhibition, the second an initiative. A visitor experiences the prize primarily through exhibited artworks, but this presentation raises broader questions concerning the efficacy of art prizes and what it means to have one for ‘The North.’ The artists – Tim Brennan, Dan Holdsworth, Eric Bainbridge, and Nina Pope and Karen Guthrie – are based in Yorkshire, the North East and the North West Arts Council regions. They were selected by a panel including Tom Lubbock and Martin Creed from a longlist nominated by some of the North’s cultural gatekeepers (curators and arts professionals). Coinciding with the Turner Prize exhibition’s move to Liverpool, the Northern Art Prize asserts that art is good for the North (generating audiences and income) and the North is good for art (focusing attention on existing talent working outside the capital).

Holdsworth’s photographs, of craggy black mountains and desolate landscapes, occupy the wall space in the same room as Bainbridge’s sculptures take the floor. It is an incongruous juxtaposition; the photographs distract from the sculptures’ formal elegance and the photographic landscapes are interrupted by the stark, perpendicular lines of Bainbridge’s droll Modernist re-telling. One limitation of curating a prize is that artists are not selected to complement each other. Yet Iwona Blazwick (Frieze, Issue 95) suggests that exposing individual practices to a broader field is productive. The discord does make me consider Holdsworth and Bainbridge’s use of different formal languages to create a relationship to place. Bainbridge’s superficially sleek sculptures are built from cheap materials, evoking institutional flat pack furniture or slipshod DIY. Principally inhabiting the present space of the gallery, the materials begin to reference external contexts. The work was produced in Bangkok and one can conjecture that each sculpture’s added extra (a Satsuma atop a vertical plank, a flashing bulb) relates to that city. In Holdsworth’s landscapes a green hued night shot or protracted car headlights indicate long exposure times. Titles such as Megalith and Andoya are otherworldly. Though the photos depict real places, they create parallel, abstract worlds only experienced in the image.

Is it possible to compare such divergent artworks? Some people disparage the competition inherent in prizes altogether. Stuart Morgan (Frieze, Issue 1) said, “Artists are not in competition with each other but with themselves and the past.” Artists compete all the time for exhibitions or commissions but prizes put them in a ‘head to head’ contest where, with no objective criteria, the winner may reflect the interests of the most persuasive juror. Prizes including the Jerwood and John Moores are medium-specific, allowing easier comparison. Being open submission artists need no prior institutional recognition and they exhibit more artists, levelling the field somewhat. However for audiences the Northern Art Prize potentially holds more appeal. The Turner Prize shows there is an appetite for contemporary art in this competitive format. Perhaps it is easier to market four rather than say ten artists under the ‘prize’ banner. Maybe audiences, spurred on by the media, enjoy the sense of the ludicrous in these artistic comparisons. As long as competitions continue to generate interest and discussion of the arts, I do not think they are inimical to creativity.

There is the risk that prize hyperbole may obscure the subtleties of an artist’s work. On the busy, suited and canapé laden opening night Brennan’s blurry, pastel coloured landscape photographs appeared like non-distinct, saccharine versions of Holdsworth’s work. On a quieter visit, I was able to read the accompanying labels: Sunrise, Ryhope Coliery and Ancient Wood, West Durham Coalfield. Brennan’s work functions in the interplay between image and text. Taken using a mobile phone, the photographs question our reading of ‘The North’ from a post-industrial perspective. Art takes time. If prizes pander to contemporary culture’s short attention span, might this quick fix attitude transfer into the viewing of works?

Here we are moving into territory where art is akin to advertising. Recall that the aim of the prize is to promote northern art, and each artist’s work betokens this broader idea. Does regional branding have a positive effect on art practice? In many respects, yes. Promoting artists and organisations from the three regions fosters new relationships and opportunities, attracts sponsorship and aims to create economic viability for the arts. In Liverpool art is part of a regeneration agenda. Where the Turner Prize has previously been privately funded, this year’s funders include The Arts Council and the North West Regional Development Agency. In comparison Leeds city centre is awash with private money. The Northern Art Prize aims to get some of this spent on art. The £16,500 prize comes from corporate sponsors and the prize website advertises other ways for business to get involved – from sponsorship to buying artworks. Whether corporate investment helps the arts flourish in the long term or has counterproductive effects on the work produced and interests served probably does not have a single answer. Still it is a question that should be borne in mind when reflecting on the virtues of this prize.

Pope and Guthrie’s videos Bataville and Little Deluxe Living explore intersections between economy and community. Bataville records the artists’ coach trip with ex-workers from Bata shoe factories to Ziln, Czech Republic. The birthplace of Bata is thriving, contrasting the economic decline of their towns. Little Deluxe Living draws parallels between Toge, a poor rural Japanese community, and the Lake District. Pope and Guthrie help residents market local produce and develop a saleable Lilliput Lane-style model of a Toge house. Both artworks attend to the importance of locality and community as situated within the global economy. The Northern Art Prize has comparable aspirations – the desire to support regional arts practice within a national framework. Though I hold some reservations about whether a prize is the best long-term strategy to raise and deploy capital in support of the arts, it is certainly a good way to generate interest. More importantly, the prize exhibition presents compelling and engaging work.

Writer detail:
Amelia Crouch is an artist based in Leeds.

ameliacrouch@hotmail.com |

Venue detail:

Back to top

Post your comment

No one has commented on this article yet, why not be the first?

To post a comment you need to login

Back to top

Back to reviews »