Turner Prize: Jesse Darling wins for ‘delirious’ art using tattered flags and barbed wire

An exhibition featuring crowd control barriers that have gone out of control, twisted railway tracks, barbed wire and tattered union jack bunting – all making a comment on modern British life – has won this year’s Turner Prize.

Jesse Darling picked up the prestigious art award and its £25,000 cheque at a ceremony in Eastbourne, East Sussex.

He has spoken about being inspired by his view of the effects of austerity, Brexit and the pandemic on the town, and the “hostile environment” immigration policy.

Speaking to BBC News after his win, he explained: “You have to love something to be able to critique it. I was born in this country and I’m looking at what’s going on here.

“I wanted to make a work that reflected that, and I wanted to make work about Britain for the British public.

“Whether they like it or don’t like it, it was a great honour and privilege to be able to do something so public for the British public.”

The judges praised his use of common objects like barriers, hazard tape, office files and net curtains “to convey a familiar yet delirious world”.

“Invoking societal breakdown, his presentation unsettles perceived notions of labour, class, Britishness and power,” they said.

The chair of the judges, Tate Britain director Alex Farquharson, added that his art was “bold”, “engaging” and partly a reflection on “the state of the nation”.

“It’s one element of it, one layer of it. I don’t think it’s the whole story. There is some sense, from his point of view, that these are times of crisis.”

In his acceptance speech, Darling also spoke up for the power of teaching children art in schools, and said Conservative governments had sent the message that self-expression and culture were “only for particular kinds of people from particular socio-economic backgrounds”.

“Don’t buy in. It’s for everyone,” he said.

Jesse Darling was many of the critics’ favourite for the prize. His room of jaunty crash barriers and union jacks is inventive and original.

Darling – who was born in Oxford but lives and works in Berlin – has said he is reflecting the hostile environment in the UK towards immigration in this work.

The exhibition entrances are turned into checkpoints complete with barbed wire. But the space itself feels alive and humorous.

That’s down to the crowd control barriers Darling has sculpted at prancing angles. This is anthropomorphising writ large – the very things that are used to corral people by the police are given a life of their own, turned into creatures that can’t be controlled.

We’re also surrounded by frilly curtains and a maypole adorned with police tape and anti-pigeon spikes.

Darling has said British towns these days are showing the effects of austerity, Brexit and Covid. He’s riffing on that in a show that tackles nationhood and British identity.

All the four nominated artists were reflecting what’s happening in Britain right now. In the end, Darling was felt by the judges to be a cut above.

The other nominated artists were Ghislaine Leung, Rory Pilgrim and Barbara Walker.

Among the critics, the Telegraph’s Alastair Sooke called Darling’s room in at Eastbourne’s Towner gallery “the most exhilarating presentation I’ve encountered at the annual exhibition in recent years”.

Sooke wrote that the artist “offers an unruly vision of contemporary Britain as both ruinous and suffused with impish magic”.

“Compared with such sculpturally compelling work, which boils and bubbles with brilliant ideas and touches, the offerings from the other shortlisted artists seem lukewarm.”

“Where it fails is in its overall visual impact. It’s too bitty.”

Darling, 41, who only went to art school in his 30s, was nominated for two exhibitions in Oxford and London last year.

He said he would use the prize money to “get some dentistry [and] I’ll probably pay my rent.”