Turner Prize 2018: Charlotte Prodger is a deserving winner, but all the nominees offered work that requires attention

Hysteria around the Turner Prize always seemed far-fetched. Fake tabloid outrage about a shark, or an unmade bed or a light going on and off. All to whip up controversy, which shone a light on contemporary art and brought audiences into museums to have a look at what the fuss was about. I wonder how many viewers actually felt outrage or shock. Except for the occasional mad Stuckist camped outside Tate, I like to hope that reactions were more uplifting and personal. That the prize exposed people to art and ideas they might otherwise have missed.

The Turner Prize, in its 34th year, does not need to generate drama anymore. These days, enough people look at contemporary art. The threat is no longer disinterest but commerce. That we end up seeing what rich people want to buy, and what they want may have nothing to do with good art. The luxury of artistic experimentation needs to be preserved and rewarded – even if it is niche, obfuscating and worthy – as opposed to art collector, or even popular, taste. So I celebrate this year’s Turner Prize nominees as difficult and thoughtful artworks that require attention and may baffle viewers.

The joy of the films by all four nominees is that they are subtle, sensitive and uncomfortable. They reflect the politics of our times: sexuality, identity, race, migration and state violence. None of them is likely, at least for now, to attract speculative millionaires. The exhibition may struggle to match targets for visitor numbers of previous years but perhaps popularity is not the point of the Turner Prize this time around.

Though we have a deserving winner. The self-effacing artist Charlotte Prodger’s film Bridgit is like an exceptionally beautiful video diary with anecdotes about her experiences of being gay – she gives us a moving account of life over a year. Filmed on an iPhone, images of the Scottish landscape wobble as she breathes or moves, her thumbs turns the screen red. Hers is the personal as political. It is engaging as well as experimental, deeply personal, literary.

Yet each nominee made films with subjects that mattered, there was no whimsy this year, no crass attention seeking, no art for art’s sake. Forensic Architecture make overtly political films, showing a Bedouin community being cleared out by Israeli police. Again, this is painful viewing: the chaos and brutality of forcing residents from their homes.

Luke Willis Thompson’s film took patience and concentration to watch. I understood from the supporting text that the images are of a sculpture made by a dying British artist Donald Rodney, in which the artist used his own skin as material. Without explanation, the film would have been impenetrable. I needed more time than I had. But it gave me a sense of racial injustice, of the delicacy of human skin. I am glad this film exists.

Naeem Mohaiemen’s films were more like feature films than the other three. Tripoli Cancelled feels like a Beckett style drama of a man living alone in a crumbling airport. Based on when the artist’s father was trapped in a Greek airport for over a week with no passport, the film resonates with themes of abandonment and futility.

All the artworks on show this year are slow; they require generosity. We must give our most precious commodity: not money but time. This year’s selection is different to any other Turner Prize exhibition. More focused on life and society than previous years, it is thought-provoking rather than provocative. To my mind, this means the judges have done their job. Bravo.