Stand and consider
Martin Gayford believes we should be wary of people who believe they can define 'art'
For some of us, the words of Kim Howells, junior culture minister responsible for tourism and broadcasting, on the subject of the Turner Prize burst with the force of revelation. Mr Howells, you will remember, left some disobliging words — 'conceptual bullshit' was the gist — on the message board at the end of this year's exhibition by artists on the shortlist.
Many will find that the most shocking aspect of this affair is that a government minister was actually present in a national museum. Looking at art. After all, this may be, in an extremely competitive field, the most philistine administration in British history. Mr Blair, for example, is the first prime minister within living memory not to have set foot in the British Museum; quite possibly he does know what it is for (his minions have starved it of cash in an utterly scandalous fashion). But as far as I was concerned, what Mr Howells's words revealed was quite how much I didn't agree with him.
He is not, I think, precisely a philistine — though he was described as one by the Independent, and proudly accepted the title (perhaps seeing some votes in philistinism). Mr Howells is in fact — to judge from his words — keeping up with contemporary art in quite a respectable middle-of-the-road fashion. He admires Jackson Pollock and Henry Moore, for example — and there are philistines out there who can't accommodate Jackson Pollock's drips any more than this year's Turner Prize offerings (I know, they accost me from time to time). He loves Picasso, and there are still those — a die-hard, benighted coterie — who speak ill of him.
Howells, by comparison, is keeping up well. He's got about as far as the midNineties, and is just beginning to see the point of Damien Hirst — 'at least his work is in your face'. It is only what is happening right now, what is completely new and he isn't used to at all that he can't stand. And that, of course, is the really difficult bit.
I know because in my time I've made, and even written, similar remarks. I too have found the Turner Prize in past years empty, pretentious, barren, conceptual and so on. I'll even admit to an involuntary internal groan when I read about the work
of Fiona Banner in this year's exhibition which consists, you will remember, of written accounts of her reactions to a pornographic film, among other things. The difference between Mr Howells and myself is that I have learnt not to rush to judgment about these things.
Having an initial adverse reaction to new art is perfectly natural — even a good sign. The point about genuinely innovative art, art which breaks the rules by which the game was previously played, is that it's bound to come as a surprise — pleasant or unpleasant as the case may be, but more likely the latter. It will be a surprise because we all approach art with expectations, and our expectation is that it will be like art we already know and admire.
That is especially likely to be the case with people who are deeply attached — as Mr Howells, to his credit, seems to be — to a particular variety of work. If you go round the Turner Prize show, expecting to find something roughly like Jackson Pollock, Henry Moore, or David Hockney, then what you see will come as a nasty, and puzzling, disappointment. But if it were much like any of those notable predecessors, it wouldn't really be new. And the TP — contrary to a widespread misunderstanding — is not awarded to the best of younger British artists but is for someone who is moving things on.
Now, for all I know, this year's assortment may well be a load of tat (I haven't yet seen it, and will review it in due course). But the Turner Prize has a good enough record to make it wise to pause before firing off a denunciation. Not all the winners have proved to be winners, but an impressive number have gone on to become international art stars.
Many of those from the Eighties and early Nineties — Antony Gormley, Anish Kapoor, Tony Cragg — are now clearly part of the art establishment, if not indeed members of the Royal Academy. Others about whose work I did not have the foggiest clue when they originally won, I now begin to get a bit of a glimmering about — Douglas Gordon, for example, Turner Laureate in 1996, and now filling the Hayward Gallery with a retrospective. Other artists I now admire, I originally dismissed with harsh words.
'I see,' said my colleague James Delingpole when we discussed this question at a recent Spectator lunch, 'you've been ground down.' I prefer to think that I've learnt a bit on the critical job. One thing I've grasped is to beware of those who have a neat and comprehensive definition of art, viz, K. Howells to the Daily Telegraph: 'Art is about seeing what's there and trying to translate it into some shape or form.'
Well, quite a lot is, no doubt. But all? The next generation is always likely to want to evade some clause of any such definition — which is why we now look back on nearly a century and a half during which each successive artistic movement has been ritualistically denounced, then accepted. At each stage, mainstream opinion has grudgingly embraced the step before, while expressing outrage at the latest thing. 'All right Cezanne, but not Picasso.' Then, 'Picasso, but not Pollock.' Now we have 'Maybe Damien Hirst but, my God, not this.' Meanwhile, some of the works once denounced — Monet's for instance — have become so popular it is smart to despise them.
A constant feature of this is watertight certainty on the part of the denouncers as to what art is. As I was eating breakfast today, John Humphreys was berating some unfortunate Turner Prize judge on the Today programme. 'Switching a light bulb on and off in a room,' he demanded, referring to the exhibit by last year's winner, Martin Creed, 'how is that art?' That's a bit of a poser, admittedly. It's as difficult to explain why something is art as to be certain why it isn't.
Over a decade ago, I went to Oxford to interview Iris Murdoch about her views on art. During our conversation, I suggested that conceptual artists had lost track of what art really is. `Ah, yes,' mused Dame Iris, benignly yet crushingly. 'Now what exactly is art?' I felt at the time that I'd just said something rather stupid, and ten years on I'm sure of it.
Previous page
