I'm very pleased that Mark Wallinger has won the Turner prize. I wasn't sure at first if a re-creation of a protest site is an original piece of art in itself, but I was won over, not least because its installation is an important protest and statement against repression in its own right. Thanks to our present anti-democratic government's Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, the installation itself at Tate Britain, being half inside and half outside the 1 kilometre exclusion area for demonstrations, however peaceful, around Parliament Square, is in part illegal.
I haven't seen Sleeper, in which he was filmed wandering around, sometimes startling people, dressed in a bear suit, but I think Ecce Homo is the most affecting piece of work that has stood on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. Very useful, by the way, to memorise who stands on the other three - hardly anyone knows considering how often the question comes up in quiz programmes.
Ooh, and I was the answer to a question on Mastermind tonight. And I fell asleep again the moment Nigella came on. She's a marvel, that woman.
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6 comments:
I may not know much about art, but I know what I like. That's pictures that look like something.
It takes a while to appreciate different styles of art (and most things) and I've had to work at it.
I'm with Dave, a picture should look like the subject.
Mark Wallinger's art looks like something.
While I like some abstract art, I do find some rather harder to see the reason for. Sculpture is easier to appreciate.
It's worth trying though, like different styles of music and unfamiliar foods, the more you experience the more you come to enjoy it - or at least to recognise its qualities. I don't want only to like what I like and not look beyond.
I like the Turner Prize and the message it brings to national news, another one I enjoy, albeit rather less well publicised, is the Becks Futures at the ICA.
I don't think Becks is sponsoring that any more and they're hoping to relaunch it with a different sponsor. It was intended to be less commercialised than the Turner, I think, but the downside is that there is hardly any publicity.
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