Controversial 2002 Turner Prize

Karin Wells · 10-29-2002, 05:22 PM

Top Art Prize Battle
Tuesday Oct 29,2002 By Paul Majendie

LONDON (Reuters) - The creators of "Arsewoman in Wonderland" and a Kentucky Fried Chicken menu encased in lead battled Tuesday for top honors in one of the art world's most controversial competitions.

The Turner Prize, derided by critics as a farce, has been won in the past by pickled sheep and elephant dung. This year it could be the turn of pornography.

The works submitted by the shortlist of four provoked a protest outside the Tate Britain museum by traditional artists. "The Turner Prize is a national joke. It is the Emperor's new clothes," complained Charles Thomson of the "pro-painting, anti-conceptual art" Stuckist movement.

Among the leading contenders for Turner 2002 is Fiona Banner who graphically wrote out the plot of porn movie "Arsewoman in Wonderland" in lurid pink words on a giant canvas. "My response to the film was very emotional. It was intimate yet distant, seductive, yet sometimes repulsive," the artist said of the painting that comes with a health warning.

Exhibition creator Katharine Stout, showing reporters round the exhibition Tuesday, said: "Visitors will be warned there is explicit language. If they don't want to read it, they don't have to." Fiercely defending the shortlist against accusations that the exhibits were pretentious and mediocre, she said: "I think contemporary art in Britain is among the best in the world."

The exhibition is invariably an enormous success, attracting up 70,000 visitors a year. This year's prize will be presented on December 8. Bookmakers have installed Keith Tyson as hot 11-8 favorite to land the prize after taking a string of hefty bets on him.

Tyson found fame by feeding data into a computer which then instructed him to paint 366 breadboards and cast a Kentucky Fried Chicken menu in lead. For the Turner Prize, he offers a giant black pillar packed with computers. It is his take on Rodin's "The Thinker."

Liam Gillick offers a colored perspex ceiling that may not fill all art fans with unbridled enthusiasm. He is the first to admit: "If some people just stand there with their backs to the work and then talk to each other, then that's good." The shortlist was completed by Catherine Yass with her vertiginous short films "Descent" and "Flight."

The Turner invariably grabs the headlines. Pop superstar Madonna swore live on television last year when presenting the prize to conceptual artist Martin Creed who won with his creation of a bare room with a light that switches on and off. Tracey Emin won fame in 1999 with her unmade bed surrounded by soiled underpants, condoms and champagne corks.

In 1998, avant-garde artist Chris Ofili won with a Virgin Mary made from elephant dung. In 1995, Damien Hirst won with a sheep pickled in formaldehyde. Artist Tony Kaye once tried to submit a homeless steel worker as his entry for the competition.

Enzie Shahmiri · 10-29-2002, 05:48 PM

Karin, my heart is bleeding...When will this ever end?!

Karin Wells · 10-29-2002, 06:07 PM

Sometimes these things make me cry but this time The Turner prize was so off-the-wall I howled with laughter.

There is a juried art show near me now. Two of the critically acclaimed "show-stoppers" were a life-sized plywood sheep with brillo pads glued to it. Another entry was also a sheet of plywood with two baby dolls nailed to it. One had a smashed head and an arm missing and both were covered with white gesso. Both had "clever" titles but I can't remember them.

I didn't get into this show with "Mother and Daughter" http://www.kcwells.com/motherdaughter2.htm and am enjoying my status as a sore loser.

Enzie Shahmiri · 10-29-2002, 06:19 PM

Now you made me laugh! I looked at "Mother and Daughter" and is wonderful and leaves me to wonder...

I am starting to think maybe I should dress myself in a two piece bikini and have some of that "belly" and "cellulite" show and post it on billboards on the 405 and 5 freeway. Outrageous is in, so maybe that is what it takes to get noticed! LOL - Come to think of it I can't do this to my family, they would just die of laughter!

Karin Wells · 10-29-2002, 07:48 PM

Maybe if you wore the bikini, covered yourself with mustard, blueberries and emu feathers and stood on a box and sang "Row row row your boat" to the tune of the Nigerian national anthem they would take you seriously. Of course you'd need a catchy non-sequitur title for this work...how about something like "Baker's Dozen"?

I'd be willing to bet that you could collect the 20,000-pound Turner Prize next year and the critics would claim you to be a true genius.

Steven Sweeney · 10-29-2002, 09:18 PM

When I first had the opportunity to visit the Tate, I thought I was in for a treat. Wasn't.

I assume the Turner Prize is named -- and if so, slanderously -- for THE Turner, and not Ted or some other T guy.

But the whole point of the show is to be outrageous. That's its raison d'etre. Just look at the publicity it generates. They don't have to pay a dime in advertising, the detractors do all of it for them. And they know that. It's part of the show. Of course it's a farce -- that's the point. That's the fun they're having. Howard Stern is a farce, too, and he revels in it. No one is a shock jock or a shock artist unless they're outrageous, so to label them so is a non-sequitur. It's only a "Congratulations!".

The people who need their heads examined are the ones throwing 20,000 pounds Sterling down the toilet. But hey, people with money throw it away on entertainment all the time.

When I'm sorting out flesh-tone temperatures on a current project, or analyzing a drawing failure, the Tate and the Turner Prize don't even exist for me. Later, maybe, for comic relief. But not for instruction, certainly, and not for derision. Why bother?

Michele Rushworth · 10-29-2002, 10:44 PM

Andy Warhol may be long gone but his definition of "art" being "whatever you can get away with" still lives in the hearts and minds of many.

It's always been my feeling that there are almost as many ideas as to what constitutes "art" as there are people walking this earth. And that's fine with me.

I know what kinds of art I like to see and what kind of art I like to make. I don't mind if others make and look at whatever they want to. (I only get ruffled when they spend my tax dollars to do it, but that's another story....!)