Glasgow School of Art Continues Turner Prize Dominance

Duncan Campbell, “It For Others” (2013) (still via Tate/YouTube)

The 2014 Turner Prize was awarded this evening to the Glasgow, Scotland–based artist Duncan Campbell, for his film “It For Others” (2013). The £25,000 (~$39,000) prize was conferred in a ceremony at the Tate Britain, according to a release from the institution. Described by Campbell as an “essay-film,” the work comprises archival material and video footage spanning a number of subjects, from masks and other anthropological objects in the British Museum to contemporary Japanese consumer products.

“The histories are very important, but it’s also important to look at how those histories are constructed as well,” the 42-year-old artist said in a short documentary produced by the Tate in connection with the prize. Campbell also notes in the same video that the portion of “It For Others” dealing with anthropological artifacts from the British Museum was inspired by Alain Resnais, Chris Marker, and Ghislain Cloquet’s Statues Also Die (1953). Denied access to the British Museum to film the same objects, the artist instead relied on specially-made reproductions.

Three other artists were shortlisted for the prize, which is in its 30th year: Ciara Phillips, James Richards, and Tris Vonna-Michell. According to BBC, Campbell is the fourth alumnus of the Glasgow School of Art to have won the prize in the last decade. The art school’s dominance of the prize has been dubbed the “the Glasgow miracle” by curator Hans Ulrich Obrist.