Turner Prize 2016

Turner Prize 2016 - Tuesday 04 - 10 -16

The new idea of letting visitors either pay the usual entrance fee - £10.60 or more than £12 with gift aid, or pay what you feel is appropriate is a good one. Thank you Tate Gallery - it feels less elitist, more for everyone, art experts or casual browsers. It doesnt cost fortunes when the Prize travels to different cities on alternate years, so why should it cost so much to see new artists trying new ideas when shown in London? Just show up on Tuesday, go to the ticket desk and offer what you feel is right - we paid £1 each .
The Turner Prize is awarded annually to an artist - aged under 50 with an association to Britain - who has had an outstanding exhibition in the past year anywhere in the world.The Prize has had an uneven past, sometimes putting upcoming artists on the map - Anthony Gormley, Cragg, Hodgkin, Hirst, Kapoor, Whiteread, Deller - the 80s and 90s are like a whos who of British artists. But it has also gone disastrously astray in the last 5 years. The worst example has to be 2014, when three of the four artworks were films which focused - it transpired after starting too close or out of focus - to be  of rectums, genitals and many other body parts on top or as well. To subject the fee paying public to this seemed perverse, in the crudest sense.
I am pleased to say 2016  is a vast improvement, definitely a return to form. Even the huge arse is good fun. Entitled "Project for a door(After Gaetano Pesce). Anthea Hamilton's room is divided into two, in one half the walls are covered in a brick pattern wallpaper and the brick patterned ladies suit was well executed and would have looked great if worn by Kate Moss or Grace Jones - in this space anyway. The other half has blue sky on the walls and curious objects hanging in the space. They could have been for many purposes or none, I couldnt tell and nor could my companion.
The first room by Helen Marten left me cold. I couldnt find much to look at or it didnt kick my brain into action. I looked, I saw, I moved on.
Josephine Pride's scale model of diesel train was much more worth taking the time over. Titled "The New Media Express in a Temporary Siding (Baby Wants to ride)" was classy. Had the rest of the work been of this standard i would give her a good chance.

The favourite for the £25k prize has to be Michael Dean. His room worked the longer you spent in it. At first its all a bit of a mess, but as you wander among the upstanding objects, made of concrete, plastic, pipe, polystyrene, I could go on, the more you wonder what is going on. Then you start noticing small hands are on the floor, as are plastic bags with marijuana logos on, mixed with Bob Marley logos. And in the middle, a huge pile of coppers, tuppences and pennies. The value is in the works title ; "UK poverty line for two adults and two children £20, 436 sterling as published on 1st September 2016". The artist then took one penny out, so poverty is literally represented in this installation. Hmm, OK , I am prepared to accept the thesis. More importantly, it works as art in its own right. Ingenious.