Turner Prize 07.

"It was the man in the bear suit who won it," announces the Guardian's Charlotte Higgins. "Mark Wallinger, 48, has been awarded this year's Turner prize, 12 years after his first nomination, when he lost out to Damien Hirst. His film Sleeper, 154 minutes of footage of the artist wandering around a deserted German gallery disguised as a bear (but recognisable by his very particular gait), has baffled and entranced visitors to the Turner prize exhibition by turns. The prize was officially given, in fact, not for Sleeper, but for State Britain, his meticulous re-creation of peace campaigner Brian Haw's anti-war protest in Parliament Square."

Updated through 12/6.

Updates, 12/4: For Adrian Searle, this is the right decision: "An Essex-born intellectual with a lugubrious laugh, Wallinger has over the years taken Jesus, Tommy Cooper, the 1966 World Cup, the first world war, racing, poetry, passion and unseemly goings-on inside a pantomime horse as his subjects, in his examinations of Britishness and national identity, wealth and breeding, religion and politics. His work is as accessible and funny as it is deadly serious." And there's much more in the Guardian's special section devoted to the Turner Prize.

"I can't remember the Turner Prize ever going to such entirely political work," blogs Time's Richard Lacayo. "This is probably a good time to point out that no less an institution than the New York Public Library has been doing its part to keep alive the tradition of protest art in the US. I think I'll head over and take a look at this show this week."

Update, 12/5: Charlotte Higgins talks with Wallinger for the Guardian.

Update, 12/6: "What does awarding the Turner Prize for such an explicitly political piece of work as State Britain say about what we want from contemporary art in the UK today?" Dan Fox contrasts 1995 and 2007.

Posted by dwhudson at December 3, 2007 4:06 PM