Impressive display ... performance and video artist Sylvia Ziranek
Apart from marking the culmination of one of the most important events in British contemporary art, the Turner prize ceremony is one of the artworld's big tribal gatherings - a night for swilling back the gin (courtesy of the show's sponsor), networking like mad, or just quietly getting drunk with your mates.
In previous years the form has been a sit-down supper, tables arrayed in front of Victorian paintings - a a rather high-class school dinner for the art world. This time, presumably because Channel 4 had moved its coverage to part of its news bulletin rather than dedicating a special programme to it, it was canapés only, and the prize was given rather abruptly at the start of the evening as the 650 guests crammed into the central halls of Tate Britain.
Yoko Ono appeared to huge cheers, did her bit, and announced painter Tomma Abts the winner - just like everyone predicted and wanted. She made a brief speech then was swept off by the press office to do some TV and radio, and talk to a group of reporters, in the Turner prize exhibition galleries.
Tomma Abts holds her nerve at the centre of press attention
I always feel sorry for the winning artist at this point. They haven't had time for the news to sink in, and suddenly they are separated from their mates and subjected to banks and banks of photographers jostling each other to snap them, then surrounded by journalists firing necessarily rather crude questions at them ("how do you feel about having won the prize?" "how are you going to spend your money?" Etc etc.) Abts managed to maintain a middle ground between self-possession and rabbit-in-headlights alarm, without actually saying very much at all (it was "very nice" to win the prize, and so forth).
Back to the party. You've got to hand it to these art types, they do know how to dress up. Some pretty amazing outfits, including a rather wonderful lady with an enormous number of flowers on her head (more Mary Poppins than Isabella Blow). Grayson Perry - well, of course he looked spectacular. He was wearing a black rubber frock that I take to be new; it was rather fetching. Perry, bless him, does seem to go to every party, but then he is ever so good at them. He won the prize in 2003, and when I caught him he was chatting to the 2004 victor, Jeremy Deller.
A talent for parties ... Grayson Perry
It was one of those parties, alas, when it's a massive physical challenge to get your hands on any food. Eventually Tate director Nicholas Serota started handing out food to guests himself. You couldn't say he's not an attentive host.
Shortlisted artists tend to have afterparties, so the question is, which one to go to? I piled off to a pub in Clerkenwell for Phil Collins's (he's the artist who is making a film about people whose lives have been destroyed by reality TV). One for the road, then another Turner prize is over till next year.
