Shock Tactics

Disturbing, violent, shocking and puerile. Not, as you might expect, a match report from your average Rangers v Celtic match, but a selection of comments made about this years Turner Prize. Fair enough, some of the works on display are a wee bit controversial, but it’s like that every year.

Together with showing life’s beauty, art should also be able shock and disturb people - anyone who covered Hieronymous Bosch in high school will testify to this - so why do people continue to feel outraged at the Turner Prize?

Posted 6 years, 4 months ago

I think it’s to do with the promotion of science-based education as the way to get a "real" job in today’s society. When you look back at figures like Galileo or Da Vinci, they (along with most educated young men - for it was mostly blokes, unfortunately) had a well-rounded interest in both science *and* art, something that’s very rare these days.

So, the upshot is that art is seen as a waste of time, produced by wasters, and as having little relevance to the world as we see it.

I believe that defamiliarisation, which is something that good art (and good comedy) achieves, helps us see the world in new ways. Too many people take things at face value and never challenge the status quo.

Tim · www · 6 years, 4 months ago

Spot on Tim.

The gut reaction to most art like this is - "how can someone win £22,000 for this rubbish?" - not realising that this is the very stuff that needs rewarding - work that shows different aspects of the world than just shiny happy people drinking Coke and wearing Gap jeans.

Right, that’s my morning rant over - I’m off to get a sandwich ;-)

Phil · 6 years, 4 months ago

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My name is Phil Lindsay, a web guy from Scotland, now living in Newcastle upon Tyne in England. I also run a web design company called Presence. You can email me at phil@xlab.co.uk, read more ramblings on my Twitter stream and view my photos on Flickr. You can grab the RSS feed for this weblog here.