A woman known for singing through a PA system at a branch of Tesco has been shortlisted for this year’s Turner Prize.
The Turner, awarded to British artists under the age of 50 for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation, is handed out annually and traditionally attracts popular debate about the nature and role of art.
Susan Philipsz is one of four artists in the running for the controversial contemporary arts prize.
The Glasgow-born 44-year-old is best known for recording herself singing versions of pop and folk songs which she has replayed in stairwells, supermarkets, and under bridges.
In Filter (1998), she played her own renditions of songs by Radiohead, Marianne Faithfull, Nirvana and the Velvet Underground through the public address system of a busy bus station, and in another work she sang through a PA system to unsuspecting shoppers at a branch of Tesco.
"Whether encountered in a stairwell, supermarket or on a promenade, the artist's voice interjects through the ambient noises of the everyday, often eliciting collective and subjective recollections or meditative introspection," Tate Britain, which runs the Turner, said today.
Other artists on the shortlist, announced today, include Dexter Dalwood (49), a painter whose subjects have included the death of Dr David Kelly and the Charles Manson murders.
In The Death Of David Kelly (2008), the London-based artist painted a representation of the beauty spot where the body of the weapons expert at the centre of the Iraq dossier row was found.
In his painting Sharon Tate's House (1998), Dalwood attempted to echo the way in which the victims of the Charles Manson murders were not immediately seen when the police entered the living room.
Another artist, Angela de la Cruz, breaks, rips and folds her paintings in on themselves and displays them wedged into corners and doorways or presented on the gallery floor.
She considers the "stretcher an extension of the body" and broke the stretchers of her canvases as a student "freeing (the) painting from the boundaries of its support", according to the Tate.
Another of the London-based artist's works, Flat (2009), was a collapsed plastic chair with outstretched legs "as if unable to support the weight of a body".
The Otolith Group, named after the part of the inner ear that senses gravity and orientation, comprises two artists, Anjalika Sagar (42), and Kodwo Eshun (44), who live and work in London.Their work has included a film which depicts the making of advertisements for financial services in Mumbai with sweatshop workers producing goods under extreme conditions.
The four nominees each present a work at Tate Britain in London for an exhibition which opens on October 4th.
The Turner Prize award is £40,000 (€46,000) with £25,000 going to the winner and £5,000 each for the other shortlisted artists. The winner will be announced on December 6th.
Previous winners include Antony Gormley, Damien Hirst and Chris Ofili.