EAF reveals 2015 commissions, Margaret Tait Award winner & Turner Prize nominees announced

Feature by News Team | 13 May 2015

The Edinburgh Art Festival has announced details of its commissions programme for 2015, with new work from Charles Avery and Marvin Gaye Chetwynd set to feature.

This year’s commissions, based around the theme of The Improbable City, include a 'large-scale sculpture' by Avery to be housed in Waverley Station as part of his ongoing project ‘The Islanders’. Chetwynd, nominated for the Turner Prize in 2012, will present a new performance piece at the Old Royal High School, while the festival will also host a prototype ship by Mexican artist Ariel Guzik, a work by Kemang Wa Lehulere made in chalk which will be rubbed out at the end of the festival, and new work by Julie Favreau, Hanna Tuulikki and Emma Finn.

EAF have also announced the four emerging artists who will present work following the festival’s first open call – Antonia Bañados, Ben Callaghan, Ross Frew and Jessica Ramm will all present new pieces.

The 2015 EAF programme is headed by the first Scottish solo shows from sculptor Phyllida Barlow and Korean artist Kwang Young Chun, with new work from Lauren Gault, Toby Paterson and Sara Barker also programmed. Our very own exhibition – The Skinny Showcase – will also return for 2015, presenting work by some of Scotland’s best graduate artists from across the art schools in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen.

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Duncan Marquiss has been announced as the winner of Glasgow Film Festival’s Margaret Tait Award for 2015.

Marquiss, a Glasgow-based artist and one-sixth of The Phantom Band, receives a £10,000 commission for a piece of new work which will premiere at the 2016 Glasgow Film Festival.

Marquiss told The Skinny: "I'm really happy and surprised to have been selected for the award this year. The other shortlisted artists are all excellent so I feel very lucky. It's also an honour to be mentioned in the same sentence as Margaret Tait as she was a remarkable filmmaker. It's exciting to think about her working life in Orkney, it makes a good case for artists operating away from cultural epicenters.

"I wouldn't be able to make the film I've planned without the award, it affords me some time off work to research the film and production costs. As to the potential long-term impact of the award its hard to say what that might be, but receiving it is certainly a big encouragement to keep making artwork in future.

"This year I'm doing an exhibition of new drawings at The Project Room in Glasgow and a residency at Hospitalfield in Arbroath. I'm currently completing Search Film, a film I've been working on with my father for some time about his study of Goshawks in Scotland and searching behaviour in other contexts – from information foraging to shopping. Hopefully that will be screened in Scotland this year."

The award – named in honour of Orkney-based experimental filmmaker Tait – was won by Charlotte Prodger in 2014, while other previous recipients of the award include Rachel Maclean and Stephen Sutcliffe.

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The shortlist for the 2015 Turner Prize has been unveiled. The £25,000 award will be presented in Scotland for the first time, but in spite of that fact, this year’s shortlist features no Scottish or Scottish-educated artists.

This year’s line-up features art and architecture collective Assemble, multi-disciplinary artist Bonnie Camplin, Janice Kerbel – nominated for operatic performance piece Doug – and sculptor Nicole Wermers. The 2014 Turner Prize was won by Glasgow School of Art graduate Duncan Campbell, for his work at the Scottish pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale.

The 2015 Turner Prize exhibition runs from 1 Oct 2015 to 1​7 Jan 2016​ at Tramway in Glasgow; the 2015 Prize will be awarded on 7 Dec.


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