Turner shortlist announced

Ben Langlands and Nikki Bell's The House of Osama Bin Laden
11 April 2012
The Weekender

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Two artists who recreated Osama bin Laden's house have made it onto the shortlist of this year's Turner Prize.

Ben Langlands, 48, and Nikki Bell, 44, who work together, join three other artists shortlisted for Britain's most controversial art prize.


The Londoners visited Afghanistan in 2002 and created an interactive digital model of the terrorist leader's "last official address", which allows visitors to navigate the deserted, crumbling bunker in virtual space.

Their piece "The House of Osama bin Laden" was first shown at The Imperial War Museum, London, featuring photographs, digital animation and video works.
Other artists announced today for the annual prize include Jeremy Deller, 38, who lives and works in London.

He is famous for Acid Brass, where a brass band played acid house anthems in a "potent form of resistance to Margaret Thatcher's government".

He has been nominated for Memory Bucket, an installation which explores Texas through various encounters during the artist's day, from meeting a survivor of the Waco siege to experiencing three million bats emerging from a cage at sunset.

Kutlug Ataman, 41, is known for documenting the life of a transsexual Turkish prostitute in Never My Soul 2002 and The Four Seasons Of Veronica Read, an erotic look at a female horticulturist's obsession with her amaryllis flowers.

Yinka Shonibare, 42, who lives and works in London, has been shortlisted for his sculptural installations "in which he uses African fabric to subvert conventional readings of cultural identity".

His work has included headless figures sitting in African dress at a table and another work which looks like a picnic scene but is actually headless figures having sex.

Nicholas Serota, Tate director and chairman of the jury, said that today's artists "represent a very interesting cross-section of art that is being made in Britain today".

The total prize has been increased from £20,000 to £40,000 this year following sponsorship with Gordon's gin.

The prize is awarded to a British artist under 50 for an outstanding exhibition of their work in the 12 months before May 9.

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