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 turner prize 2006
 to access audio and video on collective you need real player.Same old, same old. “I hate to say it, but my year as a Turner juror has seriously dampened, though I hope not extinguished, my enthusiasm for contemporary art. There is so much bad work around, so much that is derivative, half-baked or banal, you can't believe that galleries would show it.” Journalist Lynn Barber’s blunt confessional in The Observer gave astonishing insight into the process of short-listing nominees for this year’s Turner Prize. And she’s right, there is much bad and banal work around, and sometimes it is hard to retain your enthusiasm. How To Change Behaviour (Tiny Masters Of The World Come Out) by Mark Titchner and Loulou by Rebecca Warren (both detail) . It’s not necessarily true that half-baked art ends up in the prize’s annual show, but even for a lover of contemporary art it does seem to be a prize riddled with problems. Although it gets people and the media talking about challenging art, does it actually entice people who previously had no interest to visit the gallery? Does it create new enthusiasts? Coverage in the papers annually questions whether the show’s content is art at all. “Was this art? Yes, definitely, because the artist said so, explained Katherine Stout, one of the curators,” The Telegraph’s Nigel Reynolds snidely reported this year, as though it were 1972 and Carl Andre’s bricks were shattering our notions of what art could be. It’s not even that the work usually shown is unrepresentative of contemporary British art. On the contrary, the Turner Prize does seem to represent the fashions of the art world fairly well. But perhaps therein lies the rub. It’s not a prize that’s for a body of work, it’s not a long service award, it’s not about celebrating Britain’s top 100 artists. It’s about bringing the creativity of a fairly niche group of artists, whose often inaccessible work is appreciated by a relatively small number of people, to the attentions of a wider public. And there we have it, back to square one again. Can art be its own advertisement?  Teete by Tomma Abts and The return of the real / gercegin geri donusu by Phil Collins (both detail) . With that in mind, this year’s show is heavily reminiscent of last year’s, and the one before that. Mark Titchner presents a quasi-scientific/magical installation of batteries and carved boxes hooked up to large metal structures inviting you to challenge yourself and help make the piece work. His giant, arresting poster saying “tiny masters of the world come out”, a droning hum, hypnotic spinning disks and flashing video at the other end of the room seem somewhat brainwashing and unemotional. He stands a good chance of winning. Rebecca Warren shows new sculptures which fall into two camps. Harping back to sculptural classics by the likes of Degas and Giacometti, her utterly unfinished-looking chunks of bulbous clay with the odd ear or nipple are unsettling, unsatisfying but undeniably full of life. Joseph Beuys-ian vitrines filled with actual bits of rubbish and neon lighting are harder to access. Tomma Abts’ paintings are beautifully formal. Each is 48 x 38cm and, although not planned in advance, they appear to be meticulously created. Planes covering planes, the surface of her canvases constrained within their own frames, they’re immaculate homages to Modernism. And Phil Collins (no, not that one) reflects on the Turner Prize as a “media spectacle” by showing his film of Turkish people talking about how their lives have been ruined by appearing on TV shows, reliving the stories for us at the command of the director of a Turkish plastic surgery show. Next door he’s set up a fully functional production company called Shady Lane Productions, who aim to research similar tales of television woe here in Britain during the course of the exhibition. TV will eat itself. Art continues to sick itself up.
Rowan Kerek
The Turner Prize is at Tate Britain until 14 January 07.
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comment by indium
Dec 27, 2006
ok. i have to say that i don't understand a lot of the stuff here on this thread, i'm not an art critic or an art student and i've never studied art history. I'm one of the unwashed masses who know what they like.i just don't get traditional 'pretty pictures' art. wo hoo you can paint. that's talent, not art. VBut modern art. the stuff that makes people think, react, emote. That's the sort of thing i like. being up in the cold wild north, i've not seen this years exhibits in the flesh but what i have seen of then doe make me think that this year has not been one of the better years.
comment by artistpainter
Dec 12, 2006
I agree martinART. I remain motivated knowing not all painters who are actually worth anything are in galleries or on public display. The mass media has channeled so much attention away from art that it is unclear in our lifetime what is important art or who are really the important painters. Painting lives underground nowdays. Young painters with high profiles are not always important painters. Painters who create masterpieces are in general much older. A painting professor once told me "you will never see a child prodigy in painting like you do in music. It is impossible for a child to accumulate the skills necessary to make a masterwork in painting. It takes a lifetime to achieve." Twenty-somethings who get publicity are not master painters nor are thirty-somethings; they may have one striking work but the body of any young painter's work is hardly a career achievement of masterpieces. It is impossible to achieve so early in a young life. Painters must support each other to foster great works in painting because few art dealers or curators are willing to accept risk of showing painters who don't follow the hip trends in galleries. It takes a brave painter to continue painting later in life without the support or network of high profile institutions.
comment by martinART
Dec 9, 2006
As a painter myself it is pleasing that one has won the prize and it will help to raise the profile of painters in general. However, there are many better living painters around, both young and old who could blow this stuff away.
comment by artistpainter
Dec 6, 2006
We are all in tow for the most part. Galleries and museum curators exhibit what they feel comfortable showing. What artist is going to go against the grain to exploit the system? Painters don't have to follow modern art exactly but it helps their careers. I am bored with all of this.
comment by rowan
Dec 5, 2006
A genuine surprise for me as I quite liked her work but really thought Mark Titchner was more up the Turner street.
comment by amir
Dec 4, 2006
Tomma Abts. Her work is actually pretty good.
comment by artistpainter
Nov 16, 2006
Factoring in the equation of art and relativity to esthetic appeal versus mass appeal remains limited to the value given each piece whether this is emotional value or financial value. Our westerner culture is based on monetary worth as our grounding with a nod to the ancient tradition of valuing a god within the norm of society. Art didn't speak to that crowd a couple of millennia ago; it represented the quest for achievement over chaos. Our world is no longer chaos; our governors, riddled with greed while choking out decention, control us. For contemporary artists to speak, they must play with the minds of westerners who have no mind for anything but their own gratification since we no longer spend the bulk of our lives fighting off disease, poverty, or annihilation. We eat domestic animals and wipe ourselves clean after every bodily function. What is left for our minds to consume? We have already seen the best of everything humanity can achieve with the tools given them. Why should art be subjugated to the realm of perfection? We have rock stars who run around the world wanting to feed starving people and religious leaders having relations with our children. They respect chaos and seek it's sustaining order in the universe by mocking western values. Should contemporary art reflect religion and philosophy the way rock stars and priests do? or does contemporary art live outside our cultural norm of appropriate behavior?
comment by butchluva
Nov 14, 2006
As i walked round the Turner exhibition with my boyfriend last year we just knew that the shed would win and that Gillian Carnegie's wonderful paintings wouldn't. Why? Because the mediadrong judges and the reactionary 'what a loada rubbish' tabloid brigade are up each others arses in perpetuating a patronising and false dichotomy that there's proper art and then there's the 'pretentious' Turner prize. They're both taking the piss out of us and Gillian's paintings got squeezed out. No doubt Collins TV reality show 'concept' will win this year, rather than Tomma Abts mesmerising pictures or Rebecca Warren's fine sculptures, because it'll give the reactionary's more tedious and predictable column inches to write. To quote from one Johnny Rotten, 'ever get the feeling you've been cheated?'
comment by Laughing_Ball
Oct 26, 2006
Yes art produced now is contempary and art does move with times. The reason the Turner prize gets criticised is because it is trivial, emotionally unengaging and holds little meaning for most people. IMO, the difference between good art and bad, is that good art transcends the artists ego, it comes from somewhere 'beyond'. Bad art on the other such as Satchi endorsed tatt is all about the ego of the narcistic 'artist' and simply doesnt work. It generally it lacks depth and relevance and is attention seeking in much the same way as a child who throws the toys out of his pram. Particularly insulting is the notion that most people are too dumb to 'get it' - the gist of one of the recent posts. The best that can be said about it is that it is reflective of these shallow, celebrity obsessed times in which we live, in which seemingly everyone wants to be famous but without having to work for it. There are plenty modern artists who fit this category and have about as much to say as the contestants who enter Big Brother.
comment by Mark
Oct 26, 2006
I don't think my criticism of the TP was that it wasn't traditional enough. Actually its too traditional, in the sense that it conforms with an artistic production practice that dates from the 1850s!
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 useful linksthe observer: turner prize 06 the telegraph: turner prize 06 shady lane productions
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see also
 turner prize 2005feature  turner prize 2004feature  grayson perryturner prize 2004  turner prize2003  turner prize20 years  billy childish on turner prize '02
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