BIZARRE ART
By Helen Busheby
The
art of Turner protests
Photos: Tracey
Emin's bed attacked - the rest is history.
Culture minister Kim
Howells' criticism of the "cold, mechanical" and "boring" Turner Prize was not
the first attack on the award, and will not be the last.
Whether you agree with the
jury's choices or not, the Turner Prize is nothing if not entertaining. It is
supposed to reward the best in British art - and that is where the controversy
starts, because nobody can agree on what good art is. Fortunately for the
spectators, the people who it annoys are the people who are most passionate
about art - other artists. That means their protests are often as artful as
the winning entries. Kim Howells made his anger known with a note raging
against the "pathetic" nature of "conceptual bullshit" and pinned it on the
gallery's comments board.An art student in his youth, Mr. Howells' note could
now be considered a work of art in itself. A common complaint against the
prize is that it rewards everyday items - and it was reported on Thursday that
artist Sean Hall has taken the joke to its logical conclusion. He has placed a
bet with William Hill that the very betting slip with which he placed the
wager would win the Turner Prize by 2005. He was inspired by the successes of
elephant dung, dead animals and empty rooms, which have all won past awards.
Then there were the clown costumes, the broken eggs and the graffiti. But they
were just more protests. The Turner Prize was born into controversy in 1984
when its inaugural
winner, Malcolm Morley, said he was "disgusted" at how the prize pitted
artists against each other like a "blood sport". But the fun did not begin in
earnest until the 1990s. After sculptor Grenville Davey won in 1992, he warned
future entrants that media pressures would require "protective headgear, thick
gloves, barrier cream, a length of rubber hose and definitely a sense of
humour".
The
following year, Rachel Whiteread picked up the £20,000 prize for House, an
inside-out concrete cast of ademolished house in east London.Affronted
by the choice, art saboteurs and rock group the K Foundation created an award
for the year's worst artwork with twice the prize money and awarded it to
Whiteread. She split the K Foundation money between Shelter, the arts trust at
HM Prison Albany and grants for young artists - but neither award cut much ice
with Tower Hamlets Council. The local authority sent the bulldozers in to
finish off 193 Grove Road and assure its place in art history. Two years
later, Damien Hirst's winning dead animals made front page news, causing
bafflement in some quarters and outrage in others. "Have they gone stark
raving mad?" asked politician Norman Tebbit in The Sun newspaper. When Hirst's
pickled sheep sold for £25,000, The Mirror gave its readers instructions on
how to make their own version with a toy sheep and a home-made tank under the
headline: "Fleeced!" Video artist Douglas Gordon tried to turn down his
nomination in 1996, saying he was too busy and "would rather not". "But the
Tate makes it very difficult for you to turn it down," he said. He went on to
win. The following year, Julian Opie managed to resist and refuse his
nomination. As a result, it was an all-female shortlist, which caused as much
consternation as the all-male list had done the year before. When artist Chris
Ofili won with a set of paintings made using elephant dung in 1998, a
disgruntled illustrator of military books let his feelings be known by dumping
a pile of the dung at the Tate's door. And more attention-grabbing protest was
to come when Tracey Emin's infamous unmade bed - complete with soiled sheets,
vodka bottles, blood-stained underwear and a used condom - was nominated the
following year. Two men jumped on it and had a pillow fight before being
dragged off. Of Emin's exhibit - which later sold for £150,000 - playwright
Tom Stoppard remarked: "It is but a hop, skip and jump to Tracey's knickers."
Meanwhile, then culture minister Chris Smith spoke out against the prize for
being "controversy for controversy's sake... too narrow and unrepresentative
of British art". In 2000, the most shocking thing for many was the lack of
shocks. The prize was won by German-born photographer Wolfgang Tillmans - but
outside the ceremony, Stuckist demonstrators dressed in clown costumes
protested that the prize no longer represented genuine art. The night before
one ceremony, guerrilla artist Banksy stencilled "Mind the crap" on the Tate's
steps - forcing the gallery to call in emergency graffiti cleaners. And after
Martin Creed's empty room with lights turning on and off was named winner in
2001, another successful artist, Jacqueline Crofton, took it upon herself to
pelt it with eggs. "At worst, The Lights Going On And Off is an electrical
work. At best, it is philosophy," she said. "Painting is in danger of becoming
an extinct skill in this country." Even if it does kill painting off, at least
the Turner Prize will have inadvertently turned protest into an art form.