Fakes, demons and filibusters: Billy doesn’t look at this year’s shortlist.

I did not like prizes at school. I didn’t like tests or exams, or the 11+, or O-levels. Later I hated BAs and MAs. The reason I hated them is that I don’t like being tested, failed or falsely praised by anyone. Prizes and exams never made me feel part of something, they made me feel separate. I liked drawing and painting, because the only failure would be to listen to the doubters who wanted me to stop drawing and painting because “you aren’t going to make a living doing that”. I liked looking in art books at the work of painters.

Turner was a very good painter, unfortunately the prize given in his name is not good. And looking at the flat, boring nature of most of the work nominated, I suggest they rename it the Thatcher Prize, in recognition of an art establishment that celebrates her despotic brand of nihilism. A supporter of this style might well quip that “it is a reflection of the modern age in which we live”, and they’d be right. They would also be admitting to being possessed by the same demons.

A couple of years ago I was invited to a Channel 4 party at Tate Britain to “celebrate” their “involvement with the Turner Prize”. Their invite also boasted that they “encouraged discussion and debate”. I never got to see the exhibits as I was frogmarched out of the building for handing out some leaflets against the manic materialism of contemporary art practices. It seems that the “debate” about the Turner Prize does not stretch to include any disagreement.

So, as someone who has never seen a single exhibit, I decided not to spoil my track record by going along to the Turner Prize now, just because I’ve been asked to write about it. I have instead forced myself to look at some work by each of the nominees. Which has made me all the more sure of the rightness of my decision not to attend.

Fiona Banner (Goldsmiths College) has read pornography and carved full stops out of polystyrene. Liam Gillick (Goldsmiths College) has done a text installation and has already been awarded the first in a series of commissions for an outdoor installation at Tate Britain. His “concrete poetry”, like that of Fiona Banner’s, is dull even by the low standards set by Dadaist Tristan Tzara.

Keith Tyson (Carlisle College) is fascinated by science and has an “art machine” which gives him random instructions on what art to do. Eg, cast the contents of a Kentucky Fried Chicken menu in lead. And Catherine Yass (Goldsmiths Collage) has taken some photographs of toilets.

I wish them all luck. It makes no difference who wins this year’s Turner Prize. Everyone knows that it’s boring old hat and cheap television. But, most insidiously, it celebrates pseudo art and pseudo intellectualism. People could live very happily without the Turner Prize, but they could not live without real communication and emotion.

Note: The fact that three of the nominees are former students of Goldsmiths College should not be looked on as a success for Goldsmiths College, but rather as yet another failure of the Turner Prize. Billy Childish 31 October 02

The Turner Prize 2002 is on at Tate Britain until 5th January 03. The winner will be announced 8th December 02.