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Underground > Art, Fashion & Design >

Turner Prize 2003

20:30 / 09.11.03

Went to have a look at the work of the nominees at Tate Britain. Came away wowed by Grayson Perry's marvellous pots. Hope he gets it! They are beautiful and yet they're decorated with some inconguous and /or disturbing images. My favopurite was one from the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam that's festooned with saucy images of BDSM and "dressed-up-for" sex. At a distance, it could have been a favourite piece in William and Mary's sitting room in the Hague. Gorgeous.

Didn't think too much of the Chapman Bros' "Sex" (maggot-eaten skeletons hanging from a tree) or "Death" (one rubber doll fellates another) but I guess I could see the connection with the more interesting work - the thirty or forty little Goya prints they have vandalised with little cartoon heads. I'd read about this work and dismissed it, thinking it sacrilegious in some sense. However, seeing the piece changed my mind. The little bit of colour they have introduced to the endlessly monochrome prints and the detail of the little monkey faces (or whatever they are) revivifies the whole. It startles the eye and gives it more bite. There's one print with no face interpolated and it seems dull and without punch in comparison with the rest.

Anya Gallaccio's decomposing flowers and fruit and cleverly done but all I really remember now of that room is the smell of decay.

Willy Doherty's videos of the man running over a bridge left me cold. But then I had just, a wee while before, been marvelling at Bill Viola's wonderful video installation "Five Angels for the Millennium", and that seemed to operate on so many more levels.

lord nuneaton savage

12:08 / 10.11.03

Gotta disagree about the Grayson Perry pots, although they did have the agreeable smell of rotted victoriana about them, they were just not arresting enough for me.

Anya Gallacio's rotted fruit bits were some of the least inspiring work I've seen since I left art collage. They just said nothing, ok time passes things die, so what? Also they were very reminiscent of something I've seen before but which I can't put my finger on.

Willie Doherty's video installation was also completely pointless. Why bother making a piece of art so vague that you can read anything you like into it? Is it about the peace process? The pressures of urban life? Man's constant struggle? I suspect it was about nothing.

Chapman brothers redeemed the whole thing. Although the two sex dolls looked a bit like space filler and just weren't that good, 'Sex' was stunning; grim, unsettling and fucking funny. You can tell the two Chapman's loved melting their plastic soldiers in the garden as kids.
The goya 'desecrations' breathed new life into the originals. As you went round them the (beautifully realised) cartoon faces almost began to dissapear and you were left with the horror of what was being depicted. Stunning stuff. Also the Chapman room was the only place in the whole gallery where you got a sense of people interacting with the art; laughing, talking, going 'eeeew' exetera.

I kind of want them to win and don't at the same time. Like when it looks like the band you've been into for ages looks like they're about to get big, not that it'll make a blind bit of difference I suppose. Crazy art cats.

Oh, and I agree about the Bill Viola installation at Tate modern as well, although usually I can't stand his stuff.

23:07 / 29.11.03

I have to say that I found all the nominees' exhibits boring:

- Doherty's videos? Does anyone like them?
- Gallacio's rotting exhibits seemed trite.
- I admit not really looking at Perry's pots; I'm not into pots.
- I felt that the Chapman brother's exhibits were sensationalist but at least it provoked some sort of reaction! I was impressed with the blow-up dolls when I realised that it was bronze made to look like plastic.

The trip wasn't a total waste though, Lynn Chadwick's sculptures are simply fantastic. Oh, and the comments board always makes for a fun read!

Have you seen Viola's 'Passions'? I really didn't see the point in those. How are you supposed to glean some sort of insight through the use of slow motion if you are using actors?

09:30 / 04.12.03

I've not been to see the Turner Prize nominees, but I have seen some of Grayson Perry's stuff before and I quite like it. It makes me think that if I ever become a pot-owning old woman who watches the Antiques Roadshow, I should smash up all the pointless pots and tapestries I own, even if I think they're vaguely pretty, and replace them with ones similar to those. It's as if pots and tapestries have been reclaimed, freed, from their dullness of twee bridge scenes, and patterned with humour and disturbing reality.

22:47 / 07.12.03

Has anyone been to a Crafts Council exhibition in the last two or three years? Grayson Perry's not the only one using "craft" techniques to make "art." Is it fair to say that recent art fashion has pushed non-conceptual/non-appropriated stuff out into the realm of "craft" and that maybe, after this, it's coming back home?

10:23 / 08.12.03

So Grayson Perry won, which rocks if you ask me. He's taking part in an inteactive forum at 13.45 today, and you can put your question to him here.