2008 Turner Prize

The 2008 Turner Prize was awarded on 1 December 2008 to Mark Leckey. The £25,000 Turner Prize is awarded by the Tate to one of four nominees and is based on their work in the previous year. The other three 2008 nominees were Runa Islam, Goshka Macuga and Cathy Wilkes; for the first time since 1998, there were three female nominees. The chairman of the jury was Stephen Deuchar, director of Tate Britain. The artwork shown by the nominees at the invitational exhibition was generally unpopular with critics.

Nicholas Serota made a short speech before the award was presented by Nick Cave. Leckey had not prepared an acceptance speech. In an interview with Channel 4 News directly following the announcement, Leckey said, "The critics like middlebrow art. I don't make middlebrow art. Sod them. If you are working as an artist nowadays, the worse place to be, in terms of critics, is Britain."

An exhibition of work by the nominees was shown at Tate Britain from 30 September 2008 to 18 January 2009. The curator was Carolyn Kerr.

The Turner Prize is awarded for a show by the artist in the previous year. When nominees are told of their nomination, they then prepare exhibits for the Turner Prize exhibition, often at short notice. As such, the Turner Prize exhibition may not feature the works for which the artist was initially nominated by the judges. However, it tends to be the basis on which public and press judge the artist's worthiness for nomination.

There were four nominees for the prize:

It was the first time since 1998 that three of the four nominees had been women.

Stephen Deuchar, who chaired the jury, said: "The prize is not there to award the most competent artist at work today, but to draw attention to what the jury considers new developments."

Runa Islam's exhibited works were three films:

Artist's comment:

The critics said:

Mark Leckey's exhibited works were:

The critics said:

Goshka Macuga's exhibited works were:

Macuga's works incorporated photographs by surrealist Paul Nash and drawings by his mistress Eileen Agar. There were also sculptures utilising work by Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich made in glass and steel.

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