Mark Hudson argues allowing artists to award the Turner Prize to themselves destroys the purpose of the competition - discerning the best.
'What mad times we live in. The country’s time-honoured political consensus has been shot to pieces, the planet’s going down the toilet, and now Britain’s most prestigious art prize has put itself out of business by allowing the four shortlisted artists to award the prize to themselves as a group, in the name of “commonality, multiplicity and solidarity” in this “time of political crisis in Britain and much of the world”.
Far from opposing or even questioning this quixotic gesture, the judges unanimously honoured it in “recognition of these artists’ shared commitment to urgent social and political causes”.
But isn’t a hard-fought competition between artists exactly what these tricky times demand? And I don’t just mean the agony and ecstasy of a good old-fashioned awards ceremony in an out-of-season seaside resort – this year’s prize is being held in Margate – which may be just the thing to cheer up a cold winter’s evening’s telly viewing. Competitions, as we’ve come to love and hate them, may be going out of fashion on every front – first the Booker Prize, against its own rules, goes to two writers, now this – but they are about a lot more than the divisiveness and one-upmanship their detractors deplore.' ... Keep reading on The Independent
'What mad times we live in. The country’s time-honoured political consensus has been shot to pieces, the planet’s going down the toilet, and now Britain’s most prestigious art prize has put itself out of business by allowing the four shortlisted artists to award the prize to themselves as a group, in the name of “commonality, multiplicity and solidarity” in this “time of political crisis in Britain and much of the world”.
Far from opposing or even questioning this quixotic gesture, the judges unanimously honoured it in “recognition of these artists’ shared commitment to urgent social and political causes”.
But isn’t a hard-fought competition between artists exactly what these tricky times demand? And I don’t just mean the agony and ecstasy of a good old-fashioned awards ceremony in an out-of-season seaside resort – this year’s prize is being held in Margate – which may be just the thing to cheer up a cold winter’s evening’s telly viewing. Competitions, as we’ve come to love and hate them, may be going out of fashion on every front – first the Booker Prize, against its own rules, goes to two writers, now this – but they are about a lot more than the divisiveness and one-upmanship their detractors deplore.' ... Keep reading on The Independent