It's Pablo Pic-arsehole: Turner Prize wannabe hits rock bottom

A giant sculpture of a human arse, £20,000 in one-pence coins, and an off-the-shelf model train are some of the exhibits competing for this year's Turner Prize. The giant polystyrene posterior, by Anthea Hamilton, is based on a 1970s design for an entrance into a New York block of flats. Unveiling 2016 #TurnerPrize! @ …

[Anonymous Coward]

£20.000 in 1p coins ?

So that's a legal tender then.

[Spudley]

Re: £20.000 in 1p coins ?

> So that's a legal tender then.

Technically only if you didn't try to spend them all at once. There is an upper limit to the number of pennies you can use to pay for something; over that limit and the vendor is not obliged to accept them (although they can if they wish).

I can't remember exactly what the limit is (and I can't be bothered to google it), but it's certainly a couple of orders of magnitude lower than twenty grand.

[Dr Patrick J R Harkin]

"£20,000 in one-pence coins"

I'm going to submit a totally different exhibit next year, using one-penny coins.

[cantankerous swineherd]

artists: winding people up since the year dot.

[Mage]

Artists or poseurs?

Turner is pointless.

Some artists are just egocentric attention whores. I know real artists.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Artists or poseurs?

"Turner is pointless."

Yeah, Seurat got pissed one night, had a row with him and banned him from the club. A bit rich really considering they let Van Gogh in!

[JustNiz]

It comes to something when you can't tell if something is meant to be an art piece or is actually just some equipment left lying around by one of the maintenance guys.

[Magani]

I do believe that's already happened at MONA in Hobart last year.

A collection of ladders, a roller platform, some brooms and a few buckets in a seemingly discussed corner were being 'critically discussed' by a couple of Pearls-and-Twin-Set matrons when three workers came in and started using them to clean the area, presumably in preparation for a new exhibit.

Nearly wet myself.

[theModge]

The inverse has happened as well: there's been a couple of cases in tate modern of exhibits being taken away by the cleaners!

[Velv]

That Sinking Feeling (1979) directed by Bill Forsyth. A random pile of stainless steel sinks are bought by gallery owner Richard Demarco.

Great little film

[Sir Barry]

Next year

I'll be entering finger paintings by my 3 year old niece.

£40,000 will come in handy....

[Tromos]

Re: Next year

"£40,000 will come in handy...."

You'll need a couple of trucks. More than half the prize money will be in 1p coins.

[Anonymous Custard]

Re: Next year

It'll be severely challenged by my entry - I propose to enter the absurd concept of art by installing an idea for the post-modern world.

Or to put it another way, just by leaving a completely empty display there full of even more hot air than currently exists around the topic. Meanwhile I'll be down the pub with a few pints of real workmanship...

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Next year

Just remember, anything can win if you can spout the correct bollocks the judges want to hear.

I would suggest studying the judges and their accomplishments and make sure that each of them are alluded to in your description of the work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at him

Spraying that bloody red stuff on his hand against the cave wall, nobody cares.

[Unep Eurobats]

Pheeep

I hear the sound of El Reg's trusty modern-art dog whistle.

Don't hold back, commentards. Remember, ignorance is no barrier.

[AndyS]

Re: Pheeep

Dog whistle is meant to be more subtle. Like, for example, a US idiot Republican stating "Barak Obama isn't like us," when he means "He's black."

This is just straight out mockery. Much simpler stuff.

[Rich 11]

Re: Pheeep

Don't hold back, commentards. Remember, ignorance is no barrier.

Having submitted work* for competition before, I feel fully qualified to point and laugh.

*No, I'm not going to tell you. Yes, I am vaguely embarrassed.

[Champ]

Re: Pheeep

Just what I was thinking - while I usually enjoy the commentards pov, this thread is as reactionary as the Daily Mail comments section.

For reference guys, the era known as "Modern Art" is generally judged to have stopped around 1970. So at least stop railing against something that hasn't been made for over 40 years.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Pheeep

Okey-Dokey. All post-modern art is bollocks. Hmmm. OK. Let's be fair, most post-modern art is bollocks.

I did betake myself to Tate Modern a few years ago, with a friend. We decided that our opinion of this stuff was probably coloured by the unfavourable press it gets, so went for a long look round to see what we could see.

I got to see a large amount of tat, some of it accompanied by excellent punning titles, and very little work that actually took some skill to create. Probably even less that seemed to be saying anything original or interesting. I then heard a man after my own heart opine that, "this is all complete bollocks!" Looked round to see where he was, only to find others doing the same, and looking towards me. I then realised that it was my voice. My unconscious mind had taken control, in a desperate attempt to save my brain from turning to mush. And I was forced to beat a hasty retreat to the cafe, for an excellent cuppa and a very large (and delicious) piece of cake.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretentious

twats.

Especially cunty bollocks with 20k in settee change to highlight the "poor" family.

[Uncle Slacky]

My first thought...

...Goatse!

Shirley I can't have been the only one thinking that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: My first thought...

A clear case of Prior Art

[Dr Scrum Master]

Spend a penny

one-pence coins

You mean, one-penny coins?

['s water music]

I don;t know much about arse...

...but I know what I like.

(with apologies to Private Eye and Gilbert & George)

[Warm Braw]

Re: I don;t know much about arse...

Have you ever referred to it as the "Tradesman’s entrance", though? Prurient minds want to know.

[TitterYeNot]

Re: I don;t know much about arse...

"Have you ever referred to it as the "Tradesman’s entrance", though?"

Hasn't been referred to as the 'Tradesman's Entrance' ever since I took the missus up the OXO Tower...

<Coughs>

[Bloodbeastterror]

Tracey Emin...

...woke up on the morning of the 1999 Turner Prize and thought "Sh1t! I was supposed to have done something for the Turner! What the hell am I going to do...?"

And now the stupid piece of pretentious crap is worth (I hear) more than a million quid? You seriously couldn't make it up. Except these narcissistic talentless no-hopers keep getting away with it.

[tony2heads]

Re: Tracey Emin...

Art is 'worth' what somebody will pay for it.

Personally I like the train set, but getting it from the manufacturer has a better guarantee than that from the artist.

No sign of 'art for art's sake' with this lot.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Tracey Emin...

"No sign of 'art for art's sake' with this lot."

But there is money for gods sake.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Tracey Emin...

What about art for arse's sake?

[Roger Kynaston]

What will they make of this in Victoria

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/26/butt_out_victoria_cracks_down_on_mooning/

[Jan 0]

You don't undertand?

Vic Reeves made it all very clear last Wednesday: BBC 4 "Gaga for Dada"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07w6j9h/gaga-for-dada-the-original-art-rebels.

[Alien8n]

Art?

Modern art is full of pretentiousness. One of the most successful artists of the C20th is villified by the Establishment due to being "self taught". I mean, how dare he have genuine natural talent when everyone else makes millions from selling utter rubbish (sometimes literally) because the Establishment tells them it must be art because we know the artists personally and go to the same cocktail parties as them.

Art to me is something genuine, it's concious thought about what the artist wants to convey. It's Picasso, Matisse, Rembrandt, Rodin. It's paintings, sculpture (real sculpture, not a cast made of some pregnant woman), a cleverly framed photograph. There's more art on my lether jacket than in the Tate (it may not be good art, but it's art, it took me 3 days to paint that jacket).

[dvd]

Aeroplane

You're too late with your aeroplane idea - the Tate has already had a Harrier and Tornado on display with the paint stripped off.

I got into trouble from a guard for touching the Tornado. It'f a ***ing war plane FFS! It's been to war! I'm not going to hurt it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[A. Coatsworth]

Re: Aeroplane

Never mind!

A half scale Vulcan should be the winner *every* year.

[Thrudd]

Re: Aeroplane

Go one better and put a full scale Gerry Anderson craft on display each and every year. Maybe start with a UFO and work back to fireball x-15

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Aeroplane

I got shouted at for climbing on a tank at the Imperial War Museum. I was 6 at the time. If the armour of your tank is incapable of handling the weight of a 6 year old, you're not doing a very good job...

At the Musee Militaire in Brussels the kids play seesaw on some of the cannon at the front. And they let you climb into the cockpits of some of the planes. Now I know why 1950s fighter pilots were small...

[andy gibson]

Prankster puts glasses on gallery floor - and visitors mistake them for art:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEleWfNVifY

[MJI]

The winner is

Peter Abbots for his shed.

Now Peter do some decent locos now rather than imports.

[jake]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Art is whatever useless crap that you can convince somebody to pay for. And sometimes, you don't have to convince them, they volunteer.

I managed to forget about a 100 pound bag of fence-post mix in a wheelbarrow once. I discovered the mistake the next morning when I went to empty the barrow after an early morning downpour. I pitched it out down by the pond & figured I'd find something to do with it once it cured. Somewhat surprisingly, the bag didn't split when it hit the ground. My daughter (age about 10 at the time) stuck an old Schwinn bicycle seat into it, post first. I asked "why", she said so she had a place to sit when fishing. She used it once, but it was too low to be comfy. So it sat. Five years later, a visitor to the Ranch offered me $100 for it. I demurred, saying it was an original, made by my daughter. He asked her, and she said "no!" ... The idiot persisted, and eventually bid himself up to $750, which she "reluctantly" accepted.

[Anonymous Coward]

I might enter next year with a slab of rock and some primitive drawings of 21st century buildings and call it interpretations of the modern caveman.

Where do I claim my 40k pretentious art award?

[John Brown (no body)]

I was thinking along similar lines but I was planning on holding up an iPhone, a Samsung Galaxy and maybe and old Nokia and blowing red paint through a straw around them to represent the artists personal communication of modern life to the smart gallery visitor. Naturally dumb gallery visitors won't "get it"

[ecofeco]

That's actually brilliant JB.

[Alien8n]

Careful, that's coming very dangerously close to being actual art, it sounds like the sort of thing Banksy would do.

[JimC]

Turner Prize Quality Art is not Simple

You guys seem to think this Turner prize art is easy. Well its not. Do you have any idea how hard it is and how much work it is to get accepted by the art establishment so they take you seriously in this sort of competition? Its not about the objects, its about the context...

[Alien8n]

Re: Turner Prize Quality Art is not Simple

I think you'll find it's about the connection, not the context. Anyone could come up with some of this stuff, the only reason this is accepted as art is because the "artists" all went to Establishment art schools and know each other. If Cezanne, or Monet, was around today they wouldn't get anywhere near the Turner Prize for the simple fact they were all anti-Establishment artists. And yet they are recognised today as the artistic geniuses that they were. I have yet to see anything entered for the Turner Prize that I can connect to on any emotional level except disdain. There are street artists painting pictures of the Eiffel Tower for 20 Euros a time with more talent in their little fingers than any Turner Prize entrant. It wouldn't surprise me if the Turner Prize was created so the Establishment could give a hand-out to their artistic chums who can't shift their latest rubbish.

[You aint sin me, roit]

I like the idea of £20,436 in one-pence coins, but...

The problem is that just looking at a pile of coins is meaningless. It has to be seen in the context of the UK Government's decision that £20,437 is the poverty limit for a family of four and as this is one less then it indicates poverty.

None of that is apparent from looking at a pile of coins: you don't know how many are there; you don't know that it's one less than an arbitrary sum dreamt up by the government; you don't know that it is supposed to apply to a family of four.

The problem with this piece of "art" is that it doesn't make you think about poverty, it's the explanation of the piece that makes you think about poverty.

Besides, it should have been a pile of used, unmarked tenners...