Giant inflatable Tina Turner head will greet the Turner Prize in Margate

Amusement park Dreamland Margate has announced it will install a seven-metre-tall inflatable Tina Turner head to welcome the arrival of the Turner Prize 2019 exhibition in the seaside town. Made by artists Cool Shit, who have become known for their giant inflatable sculptures of Lionel Richie, Happy Kanye West, Damien Hirst, Snoop Dogg and Nicholas Cage in a Cage, the head will also contain a karaoke booth.

The head will be unveiled on 10 August, launching Dreamland’s “answer to the Turner Prize” – The Tina Turner Prize, an open competition to find a new Tina Turner-themed artwork for the park’s Mural by the Sea billboard. The Turner Prize exhibition will open at Margate’s Turner Contemporary Gallery on 28 September.

According to Dreamland’s CEO Eddie Kemsley, the Tina Turner installation responds to the Turner Prize in a distinctively kitsch way typical of the town, showing the “alternative, modern and wonderfully camp side of Margate’s arts scene”.

The Tina Turner Prize will open for submissions on 10 August, with a shortlist being selected by the end of August and put to public vote. The winning artwork will be on display from October 2019 – January 2020.