With the deadline looming for Turner Prize 2005 nominations, Craig Scutt takes a look at whether public funds should be used to fund what MP Kim Howells once infamously labelled ‘cold, mechanical conceptual bullshit.’
In 2002 the short-listed Turner Prize exhibits were spectacularly upstaged by a room in which patrons were invited to write their views of the exhibition on little pieces of paper and pin them to the walls. The room made newspaper headlines and was regarded by many as the highlight of the exhibition. For possibly the first time and certainly on such a large scale, the public voiced its opinion on the cream of contemporary British art.
Quoting from a Telegraph newspaper article written at the time, some of the most memorable comments included: ‘The only art in here is the writing on this wall. Bloody art students’; ‘I keep walking faster and faster through galleries. This was the fastest’; and a plain and simple, ‘Oh dear.’
The furore began after MP Kim Howells, then Culture Minister, tacked his own comments to the wall. ‘If this is the best British artists can produce then British art is lost,’ he wrote, ‘It is cold, mechanical conceptual bullshit.’ The issue of whether the Turner Prize represents the best of British or the bottom of the barrel is unlikely to be resolved in my lifetime, but Howells and that infamous room raise concerns about how contemporary art should be funded. If the public majority agree with Howells, if people simply don’t get contemporary art, if its meaning is lost on those without a PhD in Art History, then should public funds be used to pay for it?
The Turner Prize is awarded to artists under the age of 50 which would indicate that contemporary art is the preserve of the young. This makes sense seeing as what we define as contemporary art is understood to have emerged fully over the past 30 years, as part of a process which only began in the 20th Century onwards.
In 1992 the RCA recognised there was a dearth of curatorial skill in putting together contemporary art exhibitions, prompting them to develop a new course, its MA in Curating Contemporary Art, ‘designed to offer both a vocational training in and an academic study of curatorial practice, underpinned by an understanding of the wider cultural and critical context.’ This April final year students put together an exhibition, ‘The Straight and Crooked Way’ which was billed in the press release as ‘a place where one can lose oneself, where decisions must be taken, surprise encounters negotiated, and unfamiliar lore observed.’
To the casual observer the exhibit could have been said to resemble a jumbled collection of bric-a-brac, much like the interior of an old antique shop the proprietor of which has developed Alzheimer’s. Such a critique would be unfair, and would probably only be made by someone who had neither the curiosity nor the inclination to attend the exhibit in the first place. But with the Turner exhibit the strengths and frailties of contemporary art a laid on a platter and presented to the public en masse. It is little surprise that many of the short-listed works come in for a mauling. Why is this?
For a start, contemporary art, more than its predecessors, leaves itself open to interpretation.
Contemporary artists recognise that the audience for art is made up of many different individuals, from art ‘experts’ to casual observers and often deliberately omit any explanation of meaning from their work in order to see how it will be interpreted. The active role that viewers have in constructing meaning around an artwork has led many artists to believe that viewers actually complete an artwork, that interaction is the missing link in creating understanding.
These leads some artists, such as Australian Louise Hearman who numbers her creations, to be inclined to leave no clues for an audience to even begin to assess their work, except through the actual work itself.
But is the lack of any attempt to describe and define contemporary art just a cover up for the absence of any deep and meaningful thought that has actually gone into its creation? With many artists, such as former Turner nominees and contemporary art stalwarts Jake and Dinos Chapman staying mute, it is impossible to tell. No doubt this fuels the exasperation and strength of conviction in those who believe that contemporary art spaces are the sole refuge of talentless drop outs and bong-smoking student types.
It has to be said that sometimes the artists don’t do themselves any favours when it comes to enhancing their reputations or that of contemporary art. Damien Hirst recently announcing that some of his work was ‘silly’ no doubt prompted many critics to declare ‘I told you so’ from rooftops all over London and beyond. Such revelations also point to the alarming possibility that maybe art lovers are being strung along for a ride, and that funding has in the past, and will continue to be in the future, been allocated to those who are undeserving and that somehow contemporary artists are getting away with masquerading as serious artists.
At the heart of any debate about contemporary art is the unresolved debate about what constitutes art. Classical definitions of ratio and form are unfashionable, and any notion that art has to be beautiful was tossed out the window decades ago, which leaves us open to suggestions.
When all is said and done perhaps the answer lies in market forces. It is easier and safer to conclude that art is whatever people will pay good money for, and that art at the better end of the scale commands big money. Hirst’s most famous work, the shark preserved in formaldehyde (1991), was recently sold by Charles Saatchi to an American buyer for around £7 million. In April the BBC paid Tracey Emin £60,000 for the ‘bird on a pole’ which it commissioned as part of its ‘art05’ celebration of culture in the North West (Emin says the piece ‘is a Roman Standard representing strength and femininity’). And for this year’s Turner Prize the cash cache up for grabs is a cool £40,000 following a new sponsorship deal with Gordon’s Dry Gin which began last year. If contemporary art is worth something (rather a lot actually), then it must have some worth surely?
If you want to nominate an artist for this year’s Turner, the deadline for nominations is 11th May. Visit www.tate.org.uk/britain/turnerprize/ for more information.
