The Turner Prize 2022: a ‘vintage’ shortlist?
All four artists look towards ‘growth, revival and reinvention’ in their work

Heather Phillipson, the artist who made “the installation of whipped cream topped with a cherry, drone and fly” that currently sits atop Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth, has been nominated for this year’s Turner Prize, said Miranda Bryant in The Times.
Phillipson, 44, is one of four artists on this shortlist for the UK’s most prestigious art award: the others are the visual artist Sin Wai Kin, a Canadian who “identifies as non-binary”; the pioneering black photographer Ingrid Pollard; and the sculptor Veronica Ryan. As usual, the artists will be invited to display their work in a free exhibition, to be held this year at Tate Liverpool, before the winner is announced at a televised ceremony in December.
The Turner Prize, established in 1984, is “one of the international art world’s major awards”, said Alex Marshall in The New York Times. It has long been a divisive event: in the 1990s, contenders including Damien Hirst, Rachel Whiteread and Tracey Emin were judged sufficiently controversial to inspire tabloid outrage. More recently, critics have complained that the nominees were “too obscure or that their work was more activism than art”.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Last year, the prize was won by Array Collective, an 11-strong group of artists from Northern Ireland who attend protests “while holding homemade props and humorous banners”; in 2019, the nominees declared themselves joint winners, stating that their highly political work was “incompatible with the competition format”.
This year will be a vintage one, said Adrian Searle in The Guardian. “What a good Turner Prize shortlist this is”: the four artists work in an array of media, yet there are “thematic crossovers between them”. Pollard and Ryan, who both came from the Caribbean to the UK as children in the 1950s, address “the legacies of colonialism and migration”; Sin, born to a Hong Kong Chinese father and an English mother in 1991, questions “identity and place” in an altogether different way. All four artists look towards “growth, revival and reinvention”. In these times, such values are “needed more than ever”.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
‘Are we just going to stand in passive witness to the degradation of our democracy?’
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Do Republicans have a health care plan?
Today's Big Question The shutdown hinges on the answer
-
The new age of book banning
The Explainer How America’s culture wars collided with parents and legislators who want to keep their kids away from ‘dangerous’ ideas
-
Nathan Harris’ 6 favorite books that turn adventures into revelations
Feature The author recommends works by Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McGuire, and more
-
Book reviews: ‘Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What We Can Do About It’ and ‘It Girl: The Life and Legacy of Jane Birkin’
Feature How big tech is betraying its users and how Jane Birkin’s allure led her to struggle with her own self-worth
-
The delightful, smutty world of Jilly Cooper
In the Spotlight Millions mourn the ‘Mrs Kipling of sex’
-
Lee Miller at the Tate: a ‘sexy yet devastating’ show
The Week Recommends The ‘revelatory’ exhibition tells the photographer’s story ‘through her own impeccable eye’
-
6 eye-catching rounded homes
Feature Featuring a central spiral staircase in Michigan and a Balinese-style estate with ocean views in Hawaii
-
A House of Dynamite: a ‘nail-biting’ nuclear-strike thriller
The Week Recommends ‘Virtuoso talent’ Kathryn Bigelow directs a ‘fast-paced’ and ‘tense’ ‘symphony of dread’
-
The Finest Hotel in Kabul: a ‘haunting’ history of modern Afghanistan
The Week Recommends Lyse Doucet’s sensitively written work traces over 50 years of Kabul’s ‘Inter-Con’ hotel
-
The Smashing Machine: Dwayne Johnson is ‘magnetic’ in gritty biopic
The Week Recommends The wrestler-turned-Hollywood-actor takes on the role of troubled UFC champion Mark Kerr