Video artists among nominees for influential, unpredictable Turner Prize

LONDON – Two video artists who mix found footage with original images are among four finalists for British art’s influential Turner Prize.

Contenders announced Wednesday for the 25,000-pound ($42,000) award include 41-year-old Duncan Campbell — whose nominated video work includes a look at the commodity market through the medium of dance — and James Richards, 30, who splices together film clips and Internet footage with material he has shot himself.

His nominated work includes the film “Rosebud,” which features shoots of erotic photos in books that had been censored with sandpaper by a Tokyo library.

Also in the running are 31-year-old Tris Vonna-Michell, who blends recorded images and sound with live performance, and screen-print artist Ciara Phillips, 37, who has used craft techniques to address social issues including the plight of low-paid domestic workers.

Founded in 1984 and awarded annually to a Britain-based artist under 50, the prize helped make art stars of transvestite potter Grayson Perry, shark-pickler Damien Hirst and “12 Years a Slave” director Steve McQueen.

But it is also routinely mocked as pretentious and impenetrable.

Jury chief Penelope Curtis, director of the Tate Britain gallery, conceded that none of the four finalists was a household name, but said the competition was “a chance to bring out some of the smaller names that the art world has been talking about to a wider public.”

An exhibition of the finalists’ work opens at Tate Britain on Sept. 30, and the prizewinner will be announced Dec. 1.