Laure Prouvost Wins Turner Prize 2013 For Video Installation Wantee

Laure Prouvost Wins Turner Prize 2013 For Video Installation Wantee

This year's Turner Prize has been won by French artist Laure Prouvost, who collected the prestigious award for her video installation set in a mocked up tea party.

Atonement actress Saoirse Ronan presented the award to Prouvost, along with £25,000 prize money. The world famous exhibition was held in the first ever UK City of Culture, Londonderry, Northern Ireland, and is the first time it has been staged outside of England.

Prouvost said: "Thank you for adopting me, for having a French one, I feel adopted by the UK."

Laure Prouvost after she was named the Turner Prize winner for 2013

Wantee shows art work created by a central character of the film, Prouvost's fictional grandfather, being used for domestic duties by his wife. It symbolises how an artist who dreams of his work being displayed in books and galleries loses control of it and ultimately it has an unglamorous fate in the household.

The video is a response to the artist Kurt Schwitters and opens with the question: "Would you like some tea?" The title is Wantee because Schwitters' girlfriend was nicknamed Wantee as she repeatedly asks "want tea".

Four artists - Prouvost, Tino Sehgal, David Shrigley and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye - were in contention for the award. Established in 1984, the Turner Prize is awarded to a contemporary artist under 50, living, working or born in Britain, who is judged to have put on the best exhibition over the last 12 months.

Lois Rowe, programme director of fine art, Wimbledon College of Arts, University of the Arts London said Prouvost "was an exemplary artist for students to follow".

She added: "There is a real generosity and openness in the narratives she creates and her use of language and approach to situating objects is incredibly imaginative."

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