UKC

Obviously a bit chilly at the awards ceremony.

Nice installation though.

In reply to JJL: Read about it, not seen it. Last one I actually saw was Rachel Whiteread's.

Don't get why it would be chilly at the awards??

In reply to Wonko The Sane:

I think he meant "nippy" rather than chilly

In reply to Blue Straggler:

The winner did it all without conventional support too.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Mr Blue quick as ever

In reply to JJL:

ithangyew

In reply to JJL: Nope. Not getting it. Can't be arsed to watch her video....... go on, explain it.

In reply to Wonko The Sane:

http://tinyurl.com/ckqejek

In reply to JJL: Haha, oh, NIPpy.

Gotcha.
Not bad for 46 though.

In reply to Wonko The Sane:

A less subtle clue:
http://www.thesuperficial.com/photos/the-crap-we-missed-tuesday-12-4-12/the...

In reply to JJL:

She doesn't look as though she's Japanese to me...

In reply to JJL: Turner Prize? Pathetic self indulgent and making no worthy contribution to the world at all. Load of nonsense.

In reply to cragtaff:

Do you make a worthy contribution to the world?

In reply to Blue Straggler:

This sketch is brilliant, but skip to 1.09 for relevance to this thread.

youtube.com/watch?v=p3tUqRBiMVo&

I have to say, I try to be open to the possibility that the Turner Prize artists, the judges and those who really get excited about the art aren't just a bunch of people who all talk to each other (literally or not) and create meaning and value in it just by talking about it. But it always looks that way to me.

The awful celebrities they have on there presenting it - Madonna, the women that had a 'Mr Brainwash' as an album cover!? - and the complete lack of any commentary that provides any glimmer as to why it's not banal, vacuous crap (although that could just be Channel 4's fault) serve to convince me that it's an unintentional sham.

My test is: if it's indistinguishable from satire (as Spartacus Chetwynd certainly looked from the TV viewer's angle), it is, however open minded you are, a piss-take.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Exactly

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Its an art awards for those in the art world - in that sense it has relevance to its constituency.

Is the Piolet d'or relevant to any one outside the mountaineering world?

Are the BAFTA's relevant to anyone outside show bizz / TV ?

And so on.

In reply to Henry Iddon:

I'm not sure that the argument really holds. I do happen to think that these type of awards in general are extremely silly, but even so, I'm saying something different about the Turner Prize.

The BAFTAs (I'm guessing, so correct me if I'm wrong) give awards to successful television that the public watch and understand and even love. People like to see their favourite shows winning awards in a glitzy ceremony full of 'celebs' wearing fancy outfits - I'm guessing. It might be pointless and crap, but there is no dishonesty of sham particularly, it's just rubbish and pointless. And mountaineering isn't about having an audience, and it doesn't have one apart from mountaineers, so I don't think it's comparable or relevant.

If the Turner Prize was just an art prize for the art world that I, like the man in the green pullover, don't understand, then it wouldn't rub me up the wrong way. However, it is elevated to something more than that, by the celebrity presenters (who I believe are 'going along with it' - we know Madonna was because of the Mr Brainwash thing), the Channel 4 coverage, etc. So there is a pretense around it that those outside the 'inner circle' get it, when they don't. For the art world, it's quite serious I'm sure. But it has gathered a wider audience who, I believe, don't know what's going on, but pretend to. And it makes money and carries kudos - advertisers are interested...who's going to stop it now?

In reply to Jon Stewart:

The art world is all about money and Kudos anyway. Its a merry go round between state institutions and commercial galleries.

Its news and big award financially to an artist hence its coverage. That said the Prix Pictet Photography prizes £60k - and is an even bigger nonsense of commercial art gallery back slapping.

This years contemporary art soon becomes mainstream.

In reply to Henry Iddon:

The crucial question though, is whether, unlike any other award, the industry around the Turner Prize is propped up only by people pretending to like something that is actually meaningless to them.

We'll never know without the ability to read minds, but I know what I think.

In reply to Henry Iddon:


I'm not so sure. I don't think it's meaningful to look at back at, say, abstract impressionism and equate it with the indistinguishable-from-satire Turner Prize nominated contemporary art such as Spartacus Chetwynd or 'the lights go on and off'. I think with the latter, forces are at work that did not exist at the time of the former.

I think that 'Exit Through the Giftshop' and Madonna presenting the Turner Prize needs to be explained before I'll give up on my thesis that an industry is thriving on image-obsessed people pretending to like stuff that is vacuous, piss-take crap.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

There will be an element of that because the contemporary art world is a business - its the commercial galleries that drive it.

As in most things the 'best' and 'most interesting' work / activity is under the radar.