- Fiona Banner
Fiona Banner (born 1966) is an English artist, who was short listed for the
Turner Prize in 2002.She was born in
Merseyside and now lives inLondon . She studied atKingston University and completed her MA atGoldsmiths College in 1993. The next year she held her first solo show atCity Racing . Following her shows at the Neuer Aachener Kunstverein,and Dundee Contemporary Arts, she was nominated for the Turner Prize. More recent shows include at The Power Plant, Toronto, and "Live/Work, "at MOMA, New York".Fiona Banner’s medium is words. The possibilities and limitations of language as a tool of communication lie at the heart of her practice. Building huge pictorial texts she takes language apart, stripping it bare in order to make and unmake meaning.
Much of her work is influenced by feature films; including "Point Break" (1991), "The Desert" (1994) and particularly "The Nam" (1997), a 1,000 page book which describes the plots of six Vietnam films in their entirety:
Apocalypse Now , Born On The Fourth of July,The Deer Hunter , Full Metal Jacket,Hamburger Hill and Platoon.The wall of her show in the Turner Prize at [http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/turnerprize/2002/banner.htm Tate Britain] was dominated by a large text piece "Arsewoman in Wonderland". This caused a certain commotion in the media, as it was a vivid description of a pornographic film.
The Guardian wittily reversed the widespread question and asked, "It's art. But is it porn?" calling in "Britain's biggest porn star",Ben Dover , to comment. [Brockes, Emma [http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/turnerprize2002/story/0,12574,830233,00.html "It's art. But is it porn?"] , "The Guardian" online,November 5 ,2002 . RetrievedMay 21 ,2007 .]In 1997 Banner formed [http://www.fionabanner.com/vanitypress/index.htm The Vanity Press] , through which she publishes her own works, such as “the Nam”, “The Bastard Word” and “All The World's Fighter Planes”.
References
External links
* [http://fionabanner.com Fiona Banner] – Fiona Banner's own website with some artworks, texts and exhibition news
* [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_6_94/ai_n16533179/pg_1 The Body Of The Text] – Fiona Banner article in Art in America
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/2016542.stm Fiona Banner Profile on BBC site]
* [http://interviewstream.zkm.de/?p=19 Interview with Fiona Banner]
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