Turner Prize Tensions
The announcement that Susan Philipsz had won the Turner prize—Britain's most embattled arts prize—was rendered almost inaudible by the chants and whoops of student protesters.
The announcement that Susan Philipsz had won the Turner prize—for a sound piece consisting of her own frailly beautiful voice singing a Scottish lament over the black waters of the Clyde—was rendered almost inaudible tonight by the chants and whoops of student protesters, who were separated from the champagne-sipping partygoers at Tate Britain only by a hastily erected barrier. Students from London’s art schools, including Chelsea College of Art & Design and Central Saint Martin’s, had occupied the entrance hall of Tate Britain, where they demonstrated against the coalition government’s cuts to the arts and humanities in higher education.
