Turner Prize shortlist features ‘silent filmed portrait’ and iPhone work

An artist who made a “filmed portrait” of a woman who live-streamed the immediate aftermath of her boyfriend’s death in a police shooting has been shortlisted for the Turner Prize.

Four names are in the running for the famous contemporary art prize.

They include Luke Willis Thompson, 30, who made a black and white, silent 35mm portrait of Diamond Reynolds.

In 2016, Reynolds broadcast live, on Facebook, the moments immediately after the fatal shooting of her partner, Philando Castile, by a police officer during a traffic stop in the US.

Willis Thompson’s work is described as a “deeply affecting study of grief” which “addresses representations of race and police violence”.

The shortlist also features Glasgow-based artist Charlotte Prodger, whose work includes Bridgit, filmed entirely on her iPhone, “which she approaches as a prosthesis or extension of the nervous system … Body and device become extensions of each other”.

Last year, Lubaina Himid became the oldest artist to win the Turner Prize, at the age of 63, after it was opened up to older artists.

This year’s shortlist also includes a group, Forensic Architecture, known for its “spatial investigations of state and corporate violations worldwide”.

The group, based in London, includes architects, film-makers, software developers, investigative journalists, lawyers and scientists.

And Naeem Mohaiemen, 49, whose work encompasses films, installations and essays, is also on the shortlist.

An exhibition of work by the artists will be staged at Tate Britain from September 25 and the winner of the prize, famous for catapulting artworks such as a huge sculpture of buttocks and an unmade bed into the spotlight, will be announced in December.

Tate Britain director Alex Farquharson said: “This year’s jury has chosen an outstanding group of artists, all of whom are tackling the most pressing political and humanitarian issues of today.”