TURNERING IN HIS GRAVE ?

I`ve never really understood why the annual Turner Prize is named for JMW Turner, one of the country`s greatest artists and recipient of the recently opened Turner Contemporary Gallery in downtown Margate.   Maybe someone can enlighten my philistine approach to matters concerning modern `art,` as I grapple with the shortlist of entries for this year`s Turner Prize which has now been published.

It includes Karla Black’s `What To Ask For Others` - pictured above, which has been fairly accurately described as `a skinned dog suspended in a shopping bag` - and  which apparently typifies the ‘vulnerable beauty’ of her art, according to judges.   Black creates her works from a variety of unusual materials, including lipstick, flour, bath salts, plaster, petroleum jelly and soil.  

Hilary Lloyd’s work is described as ‘slightly voyeuristic’ and features video screens and projectors showing images of building sites, highway bridges and other eerie urban scenes, while George Shaw paints suburban scenes of ‘foreboding and danger’ using Humbrol enamel paints, of the kind often used by model makers.  Martin Boyce, meanwhile, specialises in installations inspired by Modernism, which have included items such as fences, chairs, rubbish bins and neon lights.

Now just up the road from me, a neighbour is embarking on an extension to his house.   As a result, he has a skip in his front garden which contains the soil from digging out the footings and assorted material from a discarded conservatory.   As I passed the skip yesterday, it struck me as symbolising the essential conflict between past and present, reaffirming the truism that the only constant thing in life - and, indeed, the here and now - is change, whilst at the same time accentuating the sharp difference between the spartan minimalism of yesterday and the heroic materialism of today. 
 

The point is, of course, that my neighbour`s skip has as much artistic relevance as all the smug pretension of anything you will find in Tate Modern come November, when the verdict is announced.   It seems entirely logical and deliciously appropriate for the £40,000 Turner Prize money to be stumped up by Gordon`s Gin, as maybe the only way to appreciate the entries is through the vague mist of an alcoholic stupor.   As for the great JMW, he must surely be turning in his grave, for to be associated with Margate is one thing but to be associated with the establishment equivilent of my neighbour`s skip might just be a commission too far.