Tbe Turner prize. Help me understand

[notacooldad]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/turner-prize-tate-britain-artist-rosie-cooper-benin-bronzes-b2533805.html

There is a nomination for a car covered in a crochet doily.
I could maybe understand the creativity if the artist had crochet it herself but she got someone else to do it while she takes the credit.
I know I'm going to sound like a complete idiot but me and my friends were talking about it last night but what is the point, if the artist hasn't made it themselves.

I think if the bar is set at ‘it creates a reaction’, that is way too low.

There’s more to Jasleen Kaurs installation than just the car. Lots of visual things and also sound. I’ve been several times and it evokes feelings of a time and place. I don’t think you’d have to be big in to modern art to enjoy the experience and get a sense of the Glasgow Sikh community.

Like the Booker Prize it's all a total PR stunt and not really worth bothering about.

As someone who went to Art School - yes, sometimes students are taking the piss to see how far they can go… emperors new clothes and all that. I once had a piece entered into an end of year show that was utter crap (the lecturer chose it) as it was a project I literally threw together last minute (probably hungover) with minimal materials (because it was tilling it down and I didn’t want to go out to the the art store).

Listening to visitors was quite amusing - the nonsense people tried to read into an absolute dogs dinner of a series of works was baffling.

Just found this thread from earlier this year. Dd is an aspiring artist and considering not even going to art school at this point, as it's all concepts over skills. The teachers no longer have the training themselves to be able to teach things like drawing and painting, therefore seem to frown on anyone else valuing these and some openly will tell students they'll fail if they try to submit a more traditional piece of work. The only courses teaching skills are private and not funded through the student loans system. It all seems quite ludicrous.

Ancient cathedrals are often held up to be the (desirable) opposite to modern art, being handcrafted organic wholes, etc., so I was shocked to discover that they worked with carved templates and modules that were pre-constructed and could be moved around at will.

So even without seeing in in person, the full installation or reading about the context, I quite liked it.

It provoked in me thinking about the traditionally feminine and traditionally masculine. The domestic and indoors vs the public and outdoors. Soft vs hard. And what happens when they come together.

All of that with a backdrop running through my mind of situations where I’ve encountered crochet and cars like that - cars of my 70s childhood, doilies and anti-macassars at my grandparents. And that evokes warm nostalgic feelings.

So now this art piece has gotten me feeling warm and happy whilst also meditating on gender roles and feminism.

Dies that help explain what some people see in such things and why they end up on Turner Prize shortlists?

Just for a laugh look up The Turnip Prize. Just as 'artistic' in my humble opinion and much more entertaining.

I do like modern art and abstract paintings
I'm not from an arty background and know little , but it makes you think outside the box
I understand why people think it's rubbish though!

I am reminded of this.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-36391761

What random object would you leave in a gallery to see if people thought it was art?

Art is play. Art is expression.

Some people sing.
Some people write the songs they sing. Some people sing other people's songs. Some people rap over other people singing other people's songs.
Some people mix together the recordings of other people rapping over other people singing other people's songs.

It's all some kind of art or expression. It doesn't really matter if you get it or you like it. Some people do.

This is good.

Art appreciation can be like a cryptic crossword. You have to be told the rules of engagement. Thinking about what your reaction to the thing is is pretty much it, I'd say.

Some people will find "thinking about a thing" horribly pretentious, of course. That's partly because the art world is horribly pretentious. But art isn't.

Yes, and I'd add that thinking about why you think what you think about that thing is also very vaulable. Why do you react in a certain way - is it your instinct, your conditioning, your social messaging, your prejudice?

Focusing on art as pure craftsmanship is quite one-dimensional. Technique and virtuosity in any art form is a means to an end - a talented technical singer doesn't just hit notes that others can't just for athletic purposes but to provoke an emotional reaction based on that note. Meanwhile, other singers don't need to hit that note at all to provoke a different emotional reaction. And also meanwhile, a technically accomplished singer can hit a note others can't but elicit no emotional reaction at all.

The form and the technique of art are only one part of it.

"I could have done it" Mail-style criticisms are tremendously dull. It's a refusal to engage.

Says it all really.

>> Focusing on art as pure craftsmanship is quite one-dimensional. Technique and virtuosity in any art form is a means to an end.

This. Yes.

And I hadn’t really considered this before, or at least not so overtly. Thank you.
>> and I'd add that thinking about why you think what you think about that thing is also very vaulable. Why do you react in a certain way - is it your instinct, your conditioning, your social messaging, your prejudice

So…I happened to be at Tate Britain this afternoon. Genuinely wasn’t planned when I posted this morning!!

Anyway, given this thread I went and looked at the Turner Prize exhibition in person.

And this is interesting. In person I didn’t get the warm, nostalgic feeling that I mentioned when looking at the photo. In person, the theme of cultural identity comes through much more strongly seeing the installation as a whole (the car is just one part). And, maybe because there’s a lot of ohysica
l empty space, it also seemed…I don’t know…sort of filled with ghosts if that makes sense. Empty and a bit sad rather than warm. That theme of borders, of different things joining that I had originally seen was still there are strong though. But not just male/female, domestic/public but also different cultures and different generations.

I really liked it. It was probably my favourite of the four. Though the Claudette Johnson paintings were also wonderful.

Or… the most creative part of the installation is her take on her father’s aspirations as an immigrant.

It made me smile. A shiny car… covered, swathed, in the obligatory doiley.

I like Hetain Patel’s car covered in his grandmother’s carpet in the Come As You Really Are installation in Croydon, as well.

Turner Prize 2024 review — time to retire this embarrassment of a prize

https://www.thetimes.com/article/7f85b2d0-8aa3-4055-8a55-d76b458b4370?shareToken=cf3db520a85e959d6b5ddadbeee5ce2a

I really agree with this review. The sad thing is that lots of modern art is great and the public are aware so little of it because the one prize which is supposed to promote it is instead focused on this leaden rubbish, art by committee.

Interesting review. I’d definitely agree that there’s a whole heap of brilliant art being created that’s not reflected in the four who were shortlisted. And two of the artists left me fairly cold. But other two I found interesting and engaging. None of them were particularly joyous though, maybe that’s why she found it leaden? Or maybe it’s because it was fairly heavy handed, both in the shortlisted artists and the Tate curators’ explanations, on imperialism, colonialism, identity’s etc - heavy on the
”woke” as some might put it.

I'm not crazy about the trend towards artists not making their own art but paying someone else to do so.

I think it comes out of an idea that the important point is the idea, not the craftsmanship, so it's a separation of the artist from craft.

It's not necessarily without comparators in other arts, there are songwriters who don't sing, or playwrights who need a whole ensemble of people to produce their plays. But - I do think the best songwriters have some musical ability (and composers even more so) and a good playwright has a strong understanding of acting, directing, and stagecraft generally.

It isn't just about the idea, it's about the execution, and there is kind of a dismissive attitude to craft.

I would also say - I think artists who don't take the time and effort to perfect their craft are often rather lazy and it shows in what they produce - even in the ideas - lazy people are lazy in their thinking. Especially when they are young and don't have the cash to pay the best people to do their crochet!

Thought I'd pop back on here as I went yesterday. I really liked Pio Abad - each exhibit was carefully thought out with clear captioning to explain the thought process. Although the driver for the exhibition was artefacts removed by colonialism and now languishing unseen in gallery storerooms he did highlight other similar objects - eg Imelda Marcos jewellery in a Philippine bank vault, and that we should look around us and see everyday items that come to us as a result of empire - from sugar and chocolate spread to coconut milk and houseplants. The standard of execution was very high across a wide range of media - etching on marble casting and incredibly detailed drawing.

I also loved Claudette Johnson - her pieta was exceptionally moving - maybe more to me as a south London mother as it seemed tragically relevant - but there was a real sense of movement in some works and stillness in others. I believe that her exhibition represents a body of work over time rather than ust one installation/exhibition and so perhaps it had a feel of greater emotional depth than the others.

Frankly I hated the installation by Jasleen Kaur it seemed thrown together after the Abad and didn't really like the Le Bas although my companion did like it.

I'd like Johnson to win but would be happy with Abad as it was a very well thought out exhibition.

Is modern art just a visual riddle?
What it says just seems so obvious as to be not worth making art about.

To me it says;

Doilies are feminine and crochet is a feminine craft so draping it over a big macho car talks about how our culture is feminised generally. Does this stop the maleness from moving forward because they can't see out the windscreen? What does that mean for humanity.

However why is the car so dated?
Why a doily as it's young woman who dominate Western culture dynamics not old ladies.

So I am confused.

Maybe just reading signifiers is the wrong way to go to appreciate modern art. I read it wrong, but I don't want to read art!

I like art that moves me visually to break away from these obvious signifiers. I don't like art as documentary but as an illumination of the things we cannot put words on.

It's BS. Someone once entered a ladder they used for painting. Unfortunately they lost their nerve and confessed, otherwise it might have got a prize.

I don’t think we hold other things to the same standard as we do art- a film can be a bad film, but it’s still a film. Music can be awful, but it’s still music. Why does art have to be ‘good’ to be considered as art? Isn’t bad art still art?