2 October
2012 – 6 January 2013
Announced 3 December live on Channel 4
www.tate.org.uk
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| Viewer comments at the Turner Prize Exhibition |
As I sit down to write, it comes to mind that, in considering
the work of Paul Noble, Luke Fowler, Elizabeth Price and Spartacus Chetwynd, and ultimately ‘making up one’s opinion’
concerning it, something is a stake.
It doesn’t seem as if it’s the time for petty likes and
dislikes or small critiques of particulars, there are larger questions and
greater concerns at the centre of this show.
Today, what matters to us the most?
What do we want to matter in the future?
It is like a political campaign staged by four parties with
their own vision of what art should be, what it should value, and what it
should celebrate.
Just as Romney and Obama campaign desperately and viscously
for their ideologies, and their constructions of the future, every artist of
great stature has, with their life and career as evidence, invested their whole
selves in creating a vision of what art can be.
And ‘believing in things’ is something we perhaps have a
hard time doing anymore; distinguishing one thing from another and dedicating
our lives to it. In this way, these artists are heroic figures, and I come to
the prize with great seriousness, as it is, at its heart, about belief and
vision.
Behind whom would I stake my future?
There is Paul Noble, with his massive, sprawling, intricate graphite
renderings which become a world unto themselves. This is work about personal
investment of time in the studio, dedication to a laborious and confined
physical practice where the steady growth of marks become evidence to their own
vitality. The obsessiveness of his work, and the rigidity of his perspective
(literally) demand to be taken seriously, while the content, the strange
word-shaped houses with crudely drawn plants seem to me quite childish, as if
the maker of this work imagined that through drawing it all he would control it
and render it harmless, or at least smaller than him.
To like this work is to identify with the lone artist
working at his craft, to support the investment of time in creating a personal
world based on surface. It truly is not of this world, and I imagine that this
fantastical element is a comfort zone for many.
Next, there is Luke Fowler. His film, All Divided Selves (2011) is based on the life and work of famed Scottish
psychiatrist R.D. Laing. It is non-sequential, highly subjective and over an
hour and a half long while reaching no broad conclusions. All of these things should test the viewer’s
patience, but instead I found myself captivated by the layering and overlapping
of source material and Fowler’s refreshing treatment of how society classifies
and deals with mental illness.
From old recordings and film clips we hear the voice of
Laing, slowly intoning with great intensity and feeling his belief that the
world we find ourselves in is often strange and harsh, a place where we are completely
dependent on the families and communities to shepherd us and shape our
emotional lives. There rises a thesis
about the possible causes of schizophrenia and a deeply human proposition that
each of us has a diverse experience of living and that there should be a
dignity and a respect for the way each responds to the world and lives their
life. Although Fowler focuses on Laing’s
generation, it is clear that we continue to live in an age of standardization
and regulation, with little tolerance for behaviour outside the norm. Each of
us has probably experienced the pain, confusion and silence surrounding
‘mental’ issues, perhaps even had our own experiences of feeling less than ‘normal’
or less than ‘sane’.
Fowler’s film is powerful and generous for me because it
does not try to solve, discover, analyse or otherwise control its subject, but
allows us to take in its message and ponder it without demanding that we accept
the artist’s ‘definitive’ vision of how to respond. I get the sense that the
non-linear structure, piecing together of source material and original footage
by the artist, mean that we will all take different things from the film, and thus
feel more able to relate to the content.
It is a strange transition to make from Luke Fowler’s film
to Elizabeth Price’s work, The Woolworths
Choir of 1979 (2012). Both use
video, and old footage, as well as retelling a story from the past, but the
method and address to the audience could not be more different.
As opposed to Fowler’s effortless weaving together of many
strands of material, Price’s video is highly ordered and carefully crafted with
the precision of a car advert. There are passionate swells of music that feel
so sweet and intense, but otherwise crisp snapping and clapping guide the
viewer’s attention.
The text overlaying the video tells us where to look and
what to see; sharply directing my gaze and hijacking my train of thought. I
feel pulled and pushed; highly conducted. I sense in Price’s work a love for
the medium, an attention to detail and a perfection that is exhilarating, yet
at times oppressive. Sometimes there is
great pleasure in having such a managed experience, other times it produces a
rising frustration, especially after having spent over an hour lying down on a
carpeted floor languidly absorbing Fowler’s film. Also, the story that Price’s work
was based on was more culturally specific and, in the end, less easy for me to
invest in personally.
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| Viewer comments |
Then there is Spartacus Chetwynd – the anomaly. A complete
change in tone and content. There is spectacle, and costumes and scuffed blow-up
slides. The space seems haunted by the memory of past and future performances.
Things are haphazardly put together and craft appears secondary to experience
and intention. Theory and words find their place amongst this strange theatre
(even if they seem a bit separate) indicating grand intentions. I am intrigued
by the proposition that her work can create a new world, and serve to topple
old structures, if only for the duration of her performances.
To support this work is to identify with the chaotic, the
unfinished and wild energy that is at the heart of performance. I am most aware of Chetwynd as a character,
and the show as deriving from her charisma, energy and life. The heart of this work
for me is about believing in the ability of humour and play to disrupt and
reveal power structures of society, a tradition that is deeply rooted in our
history, yet always threatening to be forgotten. In a time of crisis and
recession, when faith in the big organising forces in our culture is at its
weakest, Chetwynd’s work, and the collaborative nature of her performances,
offer hope and energy to the cause of resistance and change.
These are the visions I see before me. Each is worthy of
attention and makes their case with exceptional strength, but for me the more
space the artist gives to the viewer’s experience, the more engaging the work.
I can’t stop thinking about Luke Fowler’s film (and I even
wrote this in the comment section at the end of the show!). Seeing it has
really caused a shift in the way I see the world and consider those around me. It’s
left me feeling more open to others, more tolerant of their individuality and I
guess of myself. I didn’t ‘learn’ from it, it gave me the space to explore and
to be open to new ways of thinking and seeing, and for that, it gets my prize:
respect, admiration, gratitude.
I am all for art that changes the world, and sometimes that
‘world’ is within me. This art matters.
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