translated from Spanish: Oscar Murillo: Colombian artist wins prestigious Turner prize in contemporary art

Colombian Oscar Murillo, Jordanian Lawrence Abu Hamdan and British Helen Cammock and Tai Shani were creditors of the award – considered the most important in the field – “in recognition of the shared commitment or these artists with urgent social and political causes.”
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The jury chaired by Alex Farquharson, director of the Tate Britain museum, noted that this year they sought to reward unity and commitment to positive change “in a time of division.”
At a ceremony in Margate, England, all four received the $52,000 prize.
The award of all the nominees has never happened in the 35-year history of the Turner Prize. All four had previously been chosen from a wider list of candidates.
Oscar Murillo, Tai Shani, Helen Cammock and Lawrence Abu Hamdan were nominated to receive the TurnerMurillo Prize, 33, was considered by many to be the favorite to win the award for their work Violent Amnesia, which explores the issue of human labor in a global economy through human efigies.
For his part, Abu Hamdan presented the sound effects of the “audio investigator” that recreates the noise inside a Syrian prison.
Shani presented a brightly colored feminist fantasy world “beyond patriarchal boundaries,” while Cammock made a film commemorating the role of women at the beginning of the Northern Ireland Conflict in the late 1960s.
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In their letter to the judges, the quartet said that they all made art “on social and political themes and contexts that we believe are of great importance and urgency.”
“The policy we deal with differs greatly, and for us it would be problematic if they faced each other, with the implication that one was more important, meaningful, or more noteworthy than the others,” they continued.
Murillo was born in Colombia, but from the age of 10 he moved to London”At this time of political crisis in Britain and much of the world, when there is already so much that divides and isolates people and communities, we feel strongly motivated to use the occasion of the award to make a collective statement on behalf of the community, multiplicity and solidarity, both in art and in society,” they wrote.
Murillo, who focuses on painting and installation art, was born in the Colombian town of La Paila (Valle del Cauca), but moved to London with his parents at the age of 10.
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In 2012 he graduated from the Royal College Of Art and in 2014 presented his first major solo exhibition, transforming the space of a gallery into a fully functional chocolate factory, a tribute to the factories of his native Colombia.
Murillo has held solo exhibitions around the world, including London, Bogota and Baku.
The quartet celebrated the jury’s decision to award a collective prize Without winners or losers?
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The decision to award the Turner Prize to the four collectively nominees was not made out of the blue. The idea unfolded in the boreal autumn when the artists first gathered in Margate, England, for the opening of the Turner Prize exhibition.
It was discussed inside the Tate (the last supervisor of the award), directed by Alex Farquharson. Discussion of the proposal was interrupted to think, reservations were expressed, followed by the decision to submit the artists’ proposal to the Turner Prize jury.
The jury’s decision to accept the artists’ request sets a precedent that can complicate things for future jurors and possibly the prize itself.
The fact is that many of the artists who accept the invitation to participate in the Turner Prize (some refuse) do so with persistent concern about their basic concept: a competition to choose a winner, the best in its class.
The nominees can see it as a simplistic, reductivist notion that feels uncomfortable. In the past they looked the other way and moved on. I wonder how many will do it in the future.
Perhaps the annual awards such as the Turner Prize and the Booker Prize, which also did not have a single winner this year, are reaching their expiration date: an anachronism of a binary era of winners and losers

Original source in Spanish