Turner Prize at Tate Britain , why painting needs some space

Contemporary and Old Art Reviews

Turner Prize at Tate Britain , why painting needs some space

Postby jasperjoffe » Thu Oct 25, 2012 12:16 pm

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/turner-prize-2012

I am going to get to the point after a bit. I was disappointed by Paul Noble's drawings, I had been a fan, but hadnt seen any actual ones for a time, they are funny, but the style of obsessive sharp pencil wears thin.it's good to be imaginative and sort of political, as he is, but...

Luke Fowler made a documentary which was shown in a special room with special benches. I didn't feel like watching tv. And Elizabeth Price made another documentary for a dark room which was jazzy and sort of hard to bear, but quite affecting till I got bored and went to see Spartacus Chetwynd's spectacle, some props were lying there in the contemporary art messy crazy style, see Paul Mccarthy et al.

I think there is a fundamental problem with not art object art, that is paintings and sculptures, in art galleries. Now hold on, I am not going all fascist and reactionary, it doesnt really matter what is called art or not, just whether it's any good... but and this is a big BUT: it does matter that painting and sculpture, is made and shown and understood in its own terms. Painting, what I know about besides tv and books, is different from films and has amazing and brilliant qualities which are special and worth looking at. And painting needs competition and discussion and passion and like any medium needs real engagement to do well and meaningfully. It is important enough, look at all the great stuff that has been done, to deserve and need its own space and not just be seen as a means to an end, another way of making art.

Curators may not generally understand that, so it's just lumped in with the movies and installations and stuff, but you are not comparing like with like, and you might end up looking for content (what goes on wall texts) or narrative (tv and film) or something which it usually isn't very good at and will make you and the people who make it, forget its ingenious qualities and the will and luck and talent it takes to do it well.
jasperjoffe
Site Admin
 
Posts: 768
Joined: Mon Jun 07, 2010 2:53 pm

Re: Turner Prize at Tate Britain , why painting needs some s

Postby beltandbraces » Thu Oct 25, 2012 12:45 pm

Yes agreed. The truth is that something special happens when an idea is painted. Tintoretto. Now we are in the Society of the Spectacle - the same one that Manet painted in A Bar at the Folie Bergere. He thought out loud with paint and shared his first person authentic experience in doing so. Later The situationists retreated to detournement and irony whilst painting seemed to avoid all attempts at relevance despite Pollock making a statement to the contrary. Add that to the dull idea that the act of choosing is enough then you are left with a cultural void. I mean choosing is the world of interior design.
The thing is there are still artists out there struggling to find a relevant first person (painted) language but its on the edges which is where art makes most sense. Using the language of irony (as the Turner Prize entrants appear to do) in the central spotlight is just the creative equivalent of a designer t-shirt of a Debord slogan.
beltandbraces
 
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Oct 18, 2012 1:38 pm

Re: Turner Prize at Tate Britain , why painting needs some s

Postby jasperjoffe » Thu Oct 25, 2012 12:58 pm

well put bandb
jasperjoffe
Site Admin
 
Posts: 768
Joined: Mon Jun 07, 2010 2:53 pm

Re: Turner Prize at Tate Britain , why painting needs some s

Postby marguerite horner » Thu Oct 25, 2012 1:37 pm

Merleau-Ponty (1964) suggests that:
Painting can have a distinctive ontological function. Precisely because painting does not ‘copy’ things, and because it does not offer things to thought as does science but presents them immediately and bodily, in their depth and movement, so that we seem to be ‘present at the fission of Being from the inside” – for these reasons painting gives a true sense of ‘the internal animation’ of the world and what it means ‘to see’ it (p284)
marguerite horner
 

Re: Turner Prize at Tate Britain , why painting needs some s

Postby CAP » Thu Oct 25, 2012 11:07 pm

Like.
User avatar
CAP
 
Posts: 1081
Joined: Thu Jan 06, 2011 11:38 am
Location: Off-world


Return to Art Reviews

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 9 guests

cron