Turner Prize 2006

J. M. W. Turner
( Self portrait, 1799 )

Quite possibly turning in his grave at. . .

One of the four shortlisted entries to this year’s ageist Turner Prize; sculpture by Rebecca Warren.

Read the way these sterile homogenised hulks of ugly are eulogized to high heaven and given artistic justification in a way that only pseudo-intellectual self-important fascist art toffs such as this troup could ever hyperbole.

The talking heads members of the Turner Prize 2006 jury.
(A guaranteed creative-free zone)
Lynn Barber, writer, The Observer
Margot Heller, Director, South London Gallery
Matthew Higgs, Director and Chief Curator, White Columns, New York
Andrew Renton, writer and Director of Curating, Goldsmiths College
Nicholas Serota, Director, Tate and Chairman of the Jury ( what grey big boss says goes )

” Rebecca Warren

For her exuberant sculptural installations as seen in her solo exhibitions at Matthew Marks Gallery, New York, and Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne, and for her contribution to the Tate Triennial 2006. Her works combine a wide range of sources with a strong formal awareness, injecting conventional materials with a sensual physicality to create something wholly new. ”

“Strong formal awareness” – now what might that exactly mean? And since when was day centre pottery class-pile or lumpen plasticine playschool-grotesque; “wholly new”?

All Serota’s pompous-arsed entrenched clique seem to know how to do well is court media controversy via cheap tit n’ ass shock-shots such as Warren’s hideous spew, promoted to swell the Tate turnstile cashbox with the gullible public’s hard-earned.

* * * * * * *

Another of the four shortlisted artists, the abstract painter Tomma Abts, is selected on the basis of works such as this. . .

Mehm, 2005

Quoting from the Tate website,
” . . .Through her intimate and compelling canvases she builds on and enriches the language of abstract painting”

Compare that with this work by L. Moholy-Nagy, painted 78 years previously.

A19, 1927

It’s not easy to see what’s being “built on” and “enriched” in the abstract painting tradition here, except perhaps hype and imitation?

MSM