LONDON (AFP) — Highlights from over 20 years of Britain's often-controversial Turner Prize art show go on display from Tuesday, in a retrospective exhibition which is once again fueling fierce debate.
A pickled cow by ex Britart badboy Damien Hirst and Chris Ofili's elephant dung canvas are among the main attractions at Turner Prize: A Retrospective, featuring key works by the 22 winners of the prize since its launch in 1984.
Others include Martin Creed's empty room with lights going on and off, and Shedboatshed, a shed which artist Simon Starling turned into a boat, paddled down the Rhine then turned back into a shed.
Tate Britain director Stephen Deuchar said the retrospective is intended as a celebration of the artists' work "and not a kind of navel-gazing exercise about the Prize itself."
He said attitudes to modern art have changed dramatically over the past 20 years. "A generation ago there was widespread suspicion -- even fear -- of contemporary art," he said.
"I think that world has been left behind. People are extremely excited about the production of contemporary art. There's a great debate every year that the Turner Prize helps to stimulate."
Others disagreed. Charles Thompson, co-founder of the Stuckists -- a group which campaigns for traditional art -- said 19th century English landscape painter Turner would be spinning in his grave.
"The only virtue in this retrospective exhibition is to remind us of the inanity of switching a light on and off in an empty room ... making abstract paintings that look like doodles by a lobotomised computer," he said.
"If Turner was alive today, he would stand no chance of winning the Turner Prize."
The prize is awarded to an artist under-50 and living in Britain, and was established in 1984, though there was no award in 1990.
As well as Hirst, it also made a household name out of Tracey Emin, who was nominated in 1999 and exhibited what has been dubbed as provocative confessional works, including her notorious "My Bed".
Surrounded by condoms, cigarette butts and stained underwear, the installation showed how her own bed looked after she had spent several days in it following the breakdown of a relationship.
Ofili, the 1998 winner, also kept the flag flying for controversy by incorporating elephant dung into all of his works.
Tomma Abts became the first female painter in the 22-year history of Britain's Turner Prize to win the award last year.
Abts's starts her work, small oil paintings and acrylics that are always presented in the same 48-centimetre by 38-centimetre (19-inch by 15-inch) format, with no idea what she will create and allows the canvas to evolve as she paints.
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