Jasleen Kaur, born in 1986, is an artist born in Scotland, in a Sikh community of Pollokshields, the southern part of Glasgow.
The Sikh community was founded in India in Punjab by Nānak (1469-1538), it is linked to the monotheistic religion and aims to unite Hindus and Muslims. God was not to be represented with material figurations and the distinction of castes is rejected.
In the bio on the artist Jasleen Kaur’s website, it reads:
“Jasleen is an artist who works with the mud of life. Raised amidst betrayals, secrecy, and outlawed outsiders, her work is to make sense of what is out of sight or hidden. She is called to plurality, de-classifications, polyphony, and blurring. She practices singing in the sediment until intoxication”.
Why are we talking about it? The 38-year-old artist has just won the Turner Prize 2024, a prestigious London award established in 1984 and now celebrating its 40th anniversary. Jasleen Kaur is therefore currently in the spotlight.
THE TURNER PRIZE 2024 for the artist
During the award ceremony, he also wore a Palestinian flag and, while Pro-Palestine protesters raged outside Tate Britain, he called for a ceasefire in the Middle East and for Tate itself to take a stand, freeing itself from organizations linked to the Israeli government.
As the winner of the Turner Prize 2024, she will receive 25,000 pounds, while the other finalists will be awarded 10,000 pounds each. The three artists reflect the growing interest in BAME (Black, Asian and minority ethnic), their culture, the protection and enhancement of their traditions that has corresponded in recent years, especially regarding 2024, with an increasing number of exhibitions dedicated, in Great Britain, to these minorities. They did not win the top prize, as selected candidates: Pio Abad, 41 years old, a Filipino artist residing in London; Delaine Le Bas, 59 years old, of Romani origin; Claudette Johnson, 65 years old, part of the artists who emerged in the Black Art Movement of the eighties.
The Turner Prize in particular awards an exhibition that has stood out over the course of the reference year.
THE WORK OF JASLEEN KAUR
The work of Jasleen Kaur is expressed in installations, kinetic and musical sculptures. Alter Altar at the Tramway in Glasgow was the exhibition that earned the Turner Prize.
Kaur sets up a space to “reimagine tradition and inherited myths”. It starts from the concept that some common objects and community spaces can hide political ideologies.
The artist gathers political flyers and family photographs in the gallery space, lays out Axminster Carpets, and places some cult bells and bottles of Irn Bru – a Scottish non-alcoholic carbonated drink, defined as Scotland’s other national drink after Scotch whisky –.
The Axminster carpets still manufactured today in a village in the county of Devon have adorned the floors of the mansions of the most important aristocrats, Duke of Devonshire, Royal Pavilion in Brighton (the residence of the Prince of Wales).
The name Axminster suggests, in my opinion, by assonance the name of the Indian district and capital Amritsar, where many followers of Sikhism settled. Many pilgrims come here to reach the sacred place par excellence, the Golden Temple.
One of the highlights is a red Ford Escort covered by a giant doily. It is a vintage car that reminds her of her father but above all is a reference to the Indians who emigrated from India to Great Britain and to other English-speaking countries, working mainly in the textile factories – like that of the Axminster carpets.
Alex Farquharson, director of the Tate Britain, stated that her art manages to take on an environmental dimension and is able to encourage «new ways of thinking about British identity through the language of contemporary art».
On the other hand, if art does not open our eyes to the current reality, the past, and the future, it is limited to being mere decoration.
She has collaborated for many years with art magazines such as Artribune, XIBT Contemporary, ArtApp, Insideart and Espoarte, preferring contemporary art in its many facets and media drifts.
