One thing that's certain is this jury’s desire to show it's in the curatorial moment. Check out their joint statement pointing out “art’s traction as a means to engage the social, economic, cultural, technological, and environmental realities”. You’re not going to find homages to older artists (think Bill Culbert at the Venice Biennale) in the Walters Prize selections and certainly no interest in traditional media like painting.
But you do have to wonder about the role of the overseas judge. At the start it was pretty clear; the jury sorted out who had made the major contributions based on local knowledge and the judge picked the one that was in his or her opinion the most interesting as an art work in the international context. Over the last two or three prize selections, however, the jury has muscled into what was previously the judge's territory. In a weird way, the overseas judge has ended up judging the panel's taste as much as the artists' abilities.
Suddenly which juror advocated for which artist becomes significantly more interesting.
Images: the Walters Prize Jury, from the left Anna-Marie White, Caterina Riva, Christina Barton and Peter Robinson
