Turner Prize announces seventh Glasgow School of Art Graduate as winner in the 40th anniversary year of prestigious world-leading visual arts award.
The 2024 Turner Prize has been awarded today 3rd December to Jasleen Kaur, a Silversmithing & Jewellery graduate from 2008, who was nominated for her solo exhibition Alter Altar at Tramway, Glasgow. The winner of the £25,000 prize was announced at a ceremony presented by actor James Norton at Tate Britain. The other three shortlisted artists this year were Pio Abad (a Fine Art graduate from 2007), Claudette Johnson, and Delaine Le Bas.
Jasleen Kaur joins a long list of Glasgow School of Art alumni who have featured in the awards, including six previous individual winners: Douglas Gordon (1996), Simon Starling (2005), Richard Wright (2009) Martin Boyce (2011), Duncan Campbell (2014) and Charlotte Prodger (2018). Two further graduates Thomas Wells and Sighle Bhreathnach-Cashell were members of the Array Collective (2021). Although no Turner Prize was made in 2020, bursaries were awarded to 10 artists “for their significant contributions to new developments in British contemporary art.” GSA graduates Jamie Crewe and Alberta Whittle among the recipients.
Glasgow-born Jasleen Kaur’s exhibition explores cultural inheritance, autobiography, assimilation, and the complexity of British identity. Kaur created sculptures from everyday objects, each animated through an immersive sound composition, giving them an uncanny illusion of life. These objects including family photos, an Axminster carpet, a vintage Ford Escort covered in a giant doily, Irn-Bru and kinetic hand bells were orchestrated to convey the artist’s upbringing in Glasgow’s Sikh community.
This remarkable success by another graduate from The Glasgow School of Art demonstrates the continuing investment in student’s talent which produces exceptional graduates across the GSA’s four schools: Mackintosh School of Architecture, School of Design, School of Fine Art, School of Innovation and Technology.
This year’s success also emphasises Glasgow’s continued UK leading position as a European centre for contemporary art practice and exhibition: two of the shortlisted artists this year presented their works initially at Tramway (Jasleen Kaur and Delanie La Bas).
“It is an honour to see GSA School of Design graduate Jasleen Kaur secure this year’s Turner Prize, and we wish her the warmest congratulations on her exceptional success” says Professor Penny Macbeth, Director of The Glasgow School of Art.
“Jasleen’s work reflecting on her Sikh upbringing in Glasgow celebrates the rich and diverse culture which exists in our city, showing not only the ways in which we choose to define ourselves, but also how we must both preserve and challenge our own traditions. Like Jasleen, many GSA graduates continued work and exhibit in the city after graduating, investing their distinctive talents, growing the creative ecosystem that allows artists and designers to work together, cross discipline boundaries and make exciting work.”.
“Jasleen’s sensitive observations of Glasgow’s Sikh community are rich in social commentary. Exploring cultural fusion through images and objects, they embody the cross-cultural identity of the city.” says Anna Gordon, Head of Silversmithing and Jewellery at The Glasgow School of Art.
“The objects she made as an undergraduate student in Silversmithing and Jewellery Design spoke to her heritage in a similar way and it has been wonderful seeing how Jasleen’s work has developed since then. Through curiosity, scale and material she is exploring new ways to communicate her narrative and I am looking forward to seeing what comes next.”
“Together with fellow nominees Claudette Johnson and Delaine Le Bas, Jasleen and Pio create work that asks searching questions about what it means to live in the present day.” says Martin Newth, Head of the School of Fine Art at The Glasgow School of Art.
“Jasleen’s practice in particular offers a striking and deeply personal response to her childhood in Glasgow. The energy, depth, and creative intelligence of both Jasleen’s and Pio’s work embody the principles that underpin The Glasgow School of Art’s approach.”
The Turner Prize exhibition of the 2024 nominees’ work will continue at Tate Britain till 16th February 2025.
Image Credits:
Jasleen Kaur : portrait at Tate. Photo credit Robin Christian.
Jasleen Kaur ‘Alter Altar’ : photo credit David Parry/PA Media Assignments.
Installation view of Jasleen Kaur, ‘Alter Altar’ Tramway,Glasgow 2023. Courtesy of Tramway and Glasgow Life.Photo: Keith Hunter
For further information contact press@gsa.ac.uk
NOTES FOR EDITORS
About Jasleen Kaur:
Jasleen Kaur was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1986. Kaur studied Silversmithing and Jewellery at Glasgow School of Art in 2008 and Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, Metalwork and Jewellery at the Royal College of Art, London in 2009-10. Jasleen Kaur is 38 years old and lives and works in London.
Kaur’s work explores how cultural memory is layered in the objects and rituals that surround us, she has described this as ‘making sense of what is out of view or withheld’. Many of those ‘out of view’ subjects relate to the impacts of imperialism on the narratives and histories we inherit. She cuts and pastes objects from everyday life into the gallery to reimagine tradition and agreed myths.
Jasleen Kaur is nominated for her solo exhibition Alter Altar, held at Tramway, Glasgow (31 March – 8 October 2023), curated by Claire Jackson. The exhibition consisted of sculpture, installation, print based work and critically, sound. Sound was embedded into the exhibition by way of worship bells, Sufi Islamic devotional music, Indian Harmonium, and pop tracks played via a car stereo, creating a polyphony of references and experiences that reflected the pluralities of religious identities, lineages of community and resistance. A perspex ‘sky’, suspended over an oversized Axminster carpet is littered with ephemera from everyday life – a heady mix of personal, political, social and religious histories and iconographies. The seemingly domestic objects strewn across ‘the heavens’ reference the dualism of the ‘political-mystic’ – a figure from her heritage – and offer a space for gathering and reflection.
Full list of GSA Turner Prize nominees and winners:
1985 – nominee: Ian Hamilton Finlay
1996 – Winner: Douglas Gordon
1997 – Nominee: Christine Borland
2005 – Winner: Simon Starling. Nominee: Jim Lambie
2007 – Nominee: Nathan Coley
2008 – Nominee: Cathy Wilkes
2009 – Winner: Richard Wright. Nominee: Lucy Skaer
2011 – Winner: Martin Boyce. Nominee: Karla Black
2013 – Nominee: David Shrigley
2014 – Winner: Duncan Campbell. Nominees: Tris Vonna-Michell, Ciara Phillips
2017 – Nominees: Rosalind Nashashibi
2018 – Winner : Charlotte Prodger
2020 – Recipients of the Turner Prize Bursary: Jamie Crewe, Alberta Whittle
2021 – Winner: Array Collective – 2 GSA graduate members – Thomas Wells & Sighle Bhreathnach-Cashell
2024 – Winner: Jasleen Kaur. Nominees: Pio Abad & Jasleen Kaur.
Additional Quotes:
Richard Birkett, Director of Glasgow International said: “Huge congratulations to Jasleen Kaur for the recognition of their work by this year’s Turner Prize jury. We’re very proud of Jasleen Kaur’s links to Glasgow and their history with Glasgow arts organisations, including Glasgow International. Glasgow has a unique and rich relationship to contemporary art, demonstrated by the extraordinary number of Turner Prize winners and nominees that have lived and worked here, many of whom have also studied or taught at The Glasgow School of Art. Glasgow provides a unique context for artists’ development, which might be lost if cultural workers’ livelihoods are not supported through learning, jobs, funding and grassroots opportunities.”
Jenny Crowe, Senior Manager at Tramway said: “Turner Prize has a special place in the heart of Glasgow’s cultural life with so many past winners based in or from the city, including Charlotte Prodger, Duncan Campbell, Martin Boyce and Douglas Gordon, all Glasgow School of Art graduates and previous exhibitors at the city’s Tramway art centre. Congratulations to Jasleen Kaur and all the nominated artists.”
About The Glasgow School of Art (GSA):
The Glasgow School of Art (GSA) is internationally recognised as one of Europe’s leading independent university-level institutions for education and research in the visual creative disciplines. Our studio-based, specialist, practice-led teaching, learning and research draw talented individuals with a shared passion for visual culture and creative production from all over the world.
Originally founded in 1845 as one of the first Government Schools of Design, the School’s history can be traced back to 1753 and the establishment of the Foulis Academy delivering a European-style art education. Today, the GSA is an international community of over 3500 students and staff and 22,000 alumni across architecture, design, fine art and innovation and technology in our campuses in Glasgow and Altyre (in the Scottish Highlands).
About The Turner Prize
One of the world’s best-known prizes for the visual arts, the Turner Prize aims to promote public debate around new developments in contemporary British art. Established in 1984, the prize is named after the radical painter JMW Turner (1775-1851) and is awarded each year to a British artist for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work. The Turner Prize winner will be awarded £25,000 with £10,000 awarded to the other shortlisted artists.
