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Turner Prize 2007 - Like A Dead Snail Say Unimpressed Stuckists
By Richard Moss
30/11/2007
Mark Wallinger, Sleeper, 2004-5. Video still. Tate. Presented by Tate Members 2006
Unimpressed by the announcement that Hollywood actor Dennis Hopper will be at Tate Liverpool on Monday to announce the winner of the Turner Prize, the Stuckist art movement has launched its now customary attack on the annual art prize, comparing it to a dead snail.
In a release dated November 30 2007 The Stuckists’ leader, painter Charles Thomson, heaps damning criticism on the Turner Prize 2007 with a tongue-in-cheek critique of each shortlisted artists.
Of the four artists in this year’s prize, Mark Wallinger is derided as a copy-cat; Nathan Coley as “Dad of the Year”; the photography of Zarina Bhimji is described as “interesting as watching paint drying”, whilst the installation work of Mike Nelson is likened to the “experience of trying to leave Lakeside shopping centre”.
Image: a scaffold with the illuminated words, there will be no miracles here.
Nathan Coley, There Will Be No Miracles Here, 2006. Courtesy the artist, doggerfisher and Haunch of Venison, London. Photo © Kay Carson 2007
“Mark Wallinger should have been allowed to play more when he was a child,” says Thompson. “He bares his soul to us, and the result is predictably unbearable.”
“Mark Wallinger’s bear is a copy-cat. Seven years ago as a protest at its absurdity, the Stuckists dressed up in costumes and walked round the Turner Prize show. The Stuckists deserve the Prize for doing it first.”
Wallinger’s submitted piece is a two-and-a-half-hour film of the artist dressed as a bear, roaming the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin.
The only female artist on the shortlist is Zarina Bhimji whose haunting, politically charged non-narrative photographs are the result of a three-year research project into the colonial history and migration patterns of East Africa, India and Zanzibar.
Also included is her short film of a ropeworks making fibres from clumps of sisal and hemp.
Image: a photograph showing a series of rifles and automatic weapons lined up against a wall
Zarina Bhimji, Illegal Sleep, 2007. Courtesy the artist and Haunch of Venison, London
“She has managed the rare achievement of making a place where remarkable vistas abound look as interesting as a back street in Battersea,” says Thomson. “She has proved the answer is not sisal blowing in the wind, and that watching rope drying is about as interesting as watching paint drying.”
Finally Mike Nelson’s piece, Amnesiac Shrine, a mini maze of lights in which the viewer is disorientated and invited to look into peepholes for a glimpse into cosmic eternity is perhaps the most impactful and enjoyable of the works on show, but it still cuts no ice with Thomson.
“The Tate is unable to tell the difference between an art gallery and Alton Towers,” he says. “He made a maze for people to get lost in: thousands of people have already had the same experience trying to leave Lakeside shopping centre. Visitors to both react identically: 'There's got to be a way out of this place'.”
Image: a photograph of a gallery installation that looks like a futuristic landscape lit up at night
Mike Nelson, Amnesiac Shrine, 2007. Courtesy of the artist, Matt's Gallery, London, and Galerie Franco Noero, Turin. Photo © Kay Carson 2007
The criticisms will come as no surprise to the Turner Prize organisers. The Stuckists have, since their inception in 1999, promoted figurative painting whilst virulently opposing conceptual art. In recent years they have been particularly critical of the Turner Prize and Nicholas Serota's curatorial policies at Tate Modern.
“It is Turner Prize as usual: pretentious, futile and boring,” says Thomson. “The Tate deludes itself that the reduced level of complaints about the Prize shows the public has been won over.”
“It actually demonstrates the loss of interest, now that what seemed to be a dangerous maniac in the village has turned out to be a harmless eccentric. The Turner Prize is a feeble spectacle, which history will find of no more interest than a gardener finds a dead snail.”
In a departure from previous years the Stuckist have also announced that for the first time since 2000 there will not be a Stuckist demonstration at the Turner Prize.
Image: a photograph of a man holding a postcard on the steps of a gallery
Sir Nicholas Serota with a Stuckist leaflet depicting himself, at the 2006 Turner Prize Stuckist demo. © Rick Friend
This, they say, is due to industrial action: they are coming out on strike in protest at what they perceive as the "lameness of this year’s show", which they believe does not merit the accolade of the traditional demo.
"We apologise particularly to those guests who have waited patiently in past years to get protest leaflets signed and on occasion taken a placard into the event, especially those closely linked to a senior Tate official," said Thomson.
"We also apologise to the Tate Liverpool attendants, who told one of our artists they were looking forward to our presence, and to the people of Liverpool, who have contacted us directly to ask if we will be there."
Thomson said there is no slight intended to the city, whose Walker Art Gallery previously hosted a major Stuckist show. "But if the Tate expects us to make an effort, then they have to learn we cannot be taken for granted," he added.
Award-winning actor, director and art collector, Dennis Hopper will present this year’s Turner Prize at Tate Liverpool on Monday 3 December 2007. The announcement will be broadcast live on Channel 4 News – will Charles Thomson be watching?
Find out more about the Stuckists, their art and their views at www.stuckism.com.
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