An interview with a Turner Prize contender.

The Turner Prize is one of the most talked about in the art world.

We spoke to 38-year-old Glaswegian artist Simon Starling (work pictured opposite), one of the four contemporary artists in the running for the £25,000 first prize.

How did you find out about your nomination for the Turner Prize and how did it feel?
I got a call from the head of the Tate and was given 24 hours to decide whether I wanted to be a part of it or not. I decided it was an okay thing to be involved in. The jury had asked some of the galleries where I’d exhibited work for some of my material so I knew it was a possibility I’d be chosen, but it was still a bit of a shock to make it onto the shortlist.

How would you describe your art?
My art takes many different forms: large scale installations, video pieces, sometimes photos… I travel a lot collecting ideas and objects and I suppose one of the main themes of my work is altering the production of every day objects and tracing things right back to their source. Some examples are photographs I took in a platinum mine while on an extended trip in South Africa. And I made a radio controlled model aeroplane but instead of using nuts and bolts, I used material from a tree I discovered in Ecuador.

The Turner Prize is one of the most controversial in the art world and regularly throws up the question of its contenders ‘is this really art’? What makes your work art?
I tend not to think about things like this because it would get in the way of the work. I’m an artist and my work sits in galleries and art institutions and I just get on with it. On a more academic level, my work is very clearly rooted in a tradition of art making.

This year much has been made of the fact that the shortlist includes a ‘conventional writer’. What do you make of the hype?
I don’t think that Gillian Carnegie is any less avant-garde than others. Her work is progressive. She is concerned with the same issues that myself and other artists are concerned with, she just presents her ideas in a more conventional form. She’s a painter and that’s a valuable medium.

Fuel cell powered bicycle from Tabernas Desert Run 2004, © Simon Starling and The Modern Institute, Glasgow.

You have been described as an environmentally friendly artist. Is that accurate? (Simon rode a moped across the dessert in Andalusia, which generated power only from bottled hydrogen and the dessert air, and produced only water as its by-product, which Simon later used in a watercolour of a cactus)
I wouldn’t say so. I’m concerned with where things come from and how objects are produced and I suppose a part of that means being ecologically aware. But part of my work is travelling, and I fly a hell of a lot, which isn’t very environmentally friendly! Having said all that, ecology is becoming a key issue with art and the world and that needs to be addressed in art. I suppose that’s what I’m tentatively doing.

If you were one of the judges who would you give the prize to?
I’d give it to me of course! It’s very strange being in competition with other artists and friends, but I’ve come this far so I might as well want to win it! The idea of 80,000 people seeing my work is fantastic.

For more information see Channel 4's Turner Prize microsite.

Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of third party sites. Main image Simon Starling Portrait by Stefan Korte and detail of watercolour on paper from Tabernas Desert Run 2004 both © Simon Starling and The Modern Institute, Glasgow.