This years Turner Prize artists will not shock nor baffle. Whats the point of that?
The Turner Prize jury – famous for shortlisting artworks that make visitors to the annual Turner exhibition feel like they may be the patsies in a Candid Camera-style prank – has evidently decided that the world had endured enough shocks for the time being. It has been an alarming year, what with banks failing, Bernie Madoff stealing billions, and America deciding that torture is bad. So yesterday this year’s jury unveiled a shortlist of four artists who it hoped would appeal to the public. The judges said their chosen artists would be short on shock value and easier to understand than many previous entrants. Such as? Such as last year’s Turner artists, maybe. They, in the words of one leading critic, combined to produce a show that was “without competition the worst in the history of the award. Shoddy, didactic, narrow-minded, humourless.” Now that’s what you call a proper Turner shortlist! The sort that unites a nation in collective indignation. Because if there is one thing worse th
