Becks Futures

Finalist for 2002 Beck’s futures award.

BECK’S FUTURES 2002:ICA Galleries, 29 March – 12 May 2002

Extract from press release:

A ghostly steam-train, a virile stallion with a rhinestone spine, Cameron Diaz, as you’ve never seen her before, topless ladies in lacey knickers adorning a levitating badger, a minimal love story, doodles, monsters and Starbucks girls, are just a few of the highlights at the third annual Beck’s Futures exhibition and art prize.

The judging panel - JULIAN OPIE, SASKIA BOS, HARLAND MILLER, MARIANNE FAITHFULL and chair MARK FRANCIS will decide on the winner of this year’s prize during the run of the exhibition.

BJÖRK will announce the winner at the Gala Awards Night on May 7 2002, at the ICA. On that night, the winner will be presented with a cheque for £24,000, and the nine remaining short-listed artists will each receive £4,000 – again making Beck’s Futures the largest art prize in the UK with total prize monies of £65,000; and showing the prize’s commitment to emerging artists.

New specially commissioned work and existing works will be shown throughout the Lower and Upper ICA Galleries, and the Cinema. Beck’s Futures’ youngest artist Nick Relph, aged 22, and his collaborator Oliver Payne premiere their new film MIXTAPE in the ICA Cinema. In the Lower Gallery Kirsten Glass develops her fascination with magazine girls with a new set of paintings, which are shown alongside new paintings by Neil Rumming, that continue his interest in biological excavations. Also downstairs David Cotterrell shows Borrowed Time, an ambitious multimedia installation of a steam train projected onto a cloud of gas, while next door Hideyuki Sawayanagi presents two cheeky video installations.

Summary:

Beck's Futures was an art prize which for its seven years of existence from 2000-2006 gained huge publicity within the UK and abroad.  Often the subject of significant criticism and attack from journalists, it nevertheless offered a conspicuous platform to the artists involved.  In 2002, Toby Patterson was the winner of the main prize but all twelve shortlsted artists received awards and were exhibited within the national touring exhibition.