CULTURE: Yes, it’s that time of year again
And this time the winner of the Turner Prize is ... Kim Howells
Turner Prize-winning conceptual art – yes, it’s boring to look at, but that’s hardly the point any more, is it? Think of all the people to whom this increasingly rarefied genre gives harmless entertainment. There are the artists, who get to see handsome photographs of themselves appear in style magazines. There are the critics, who can auto-generate one of two types of text – bored toleration or more excitable denunciation – and then have the rest of the day clear for whatever else they want to do, which probably does not involve looking at conceptual art. There are news journalists, who are free to look to the annual dialectic of traditionalist shock and modernist validation for easy copy, since everyone says the same thing every year and none of it matters much anyhow. And then there is the public, who can position themselves somewhere in this ‘debate’ and hence advertise either their tolerant liberalism, their affronted conservatism or their lofty lack of interest in the whole Turner phenomenon. After all, each of these things is more interesting than actually looking at the Turner Prize shortlist, invariably full of dull installations, desperate references to sex and films that wouldn’t last ten minutes in a commercial cinema.
Thus it’s particularly odd that politicians have failed to join in with the general Turner-based merriment – until last week, anyway, when a junior minister at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport decided to liven up a private view by posting some particularly eye-catching criticisms on a notice-board where a waiting Financial Times journalist could hardly fail to see them, and then by making himself available to the media in the most generous fashion possible in the days that followed. Yes, former Communist Kim Howells has found a new fun thing to do with the Turner Prize – apparently it can also be used to generate publicity for little-known politicians.
This minor innovation is, it must be said, very much within the spirit of more traditional Turner Prize rituals. Sir Nicholas Serota, the rest of the Tate behemoth and the people at Channel 4, to name just a few, must have been delighted at all the attention Mr Howells was generating for their slightly weary Prize, while comment editors everywhere rejoiced in this new twist to the usual choreography. It was only in the manner of their rejoicing that a few surprises surfaced. Given that Mr Howells was notably dismissive of this year’s Turner Prize entries – the phrase ‘conceptual bullshit’ featured prominently – it comes as a mild shock to see that while The Guardian welcomed Mr Howell’s intervention, the Daily Telegraph denounced Mr Howells – and in a second leader, too, no less.
What was the Telegraph’s problem? Apparently there is something deeply wrong with the notion that an arts minister should comment on ... err, the arts:
As a junior minister in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, [Mr Howells] is one of the few people in the country who is not entitled to air his opinions about art. Even if the Turner Prize were paid for by the taxpayer, rather than sponsored by Channel 4, as it is, Mr Howells would still be trampling all over the principle on which state arts subsidies for the arts have been based ever since Keynes created the Arts Council in 1946: that the Government be kept at ‘arm’s length’ from decisions about how the subsidies should be spent.
Far be it from today’s Telegraph leader writers to question the wisdom of Prof. Keynes. A few sentences on, our premier Conservative broadsheet goes on to refer in passing to de Gaulle’s durable culture minister, that incurable Marxist apologist Andre Malraux, as ‘a figure of real distinction’, albeit inevitably ‘corrupted’ by his intervention in culture!
All of which makes even less sense than the concepts underpinning most of the art in the current Turner Prize shortlist. Although there is undoubtedly an intricate network of institutional, financial and social bonds connecting the personnel of State and Tate – a subject on which David Lee of The Jackdaw has written wisely and well – it is still the case that the Turner Prize remains a private initiative. One could ponder why the Telegraph has taken to running counter-factual leaders, and indeed wonder what will come next: ‘even if Iain Duncan Smith were a competent leader ...’? But the point, anyway, is clear enough. Politicians who are responsible for doling out money should avoid making value-judgements about the quality of whatever it is that they are subsidising. Perhaps in due course the Telegraph will get around to applying this principle to spheres on which far greater sums of money are lavished, such as the benefits system, education or the moribund NHS? Well, perhaps not, but it really does go to show how comprehensively and consistently the right are wrong-footed the minute they engage in any way with questions of culture.
But let’s return, for a moment, to the specific case at issue: the Turner Prize. Of course it’s silly, but on the other hand, it matters, if only because people who know nothing else about the visual arts can be assumed both to have heard of it, and to have some sort of view about it.
The Turner Prize got off to a dull start. Created in 1984, it was a mildly lame attempt on the part of the Tate Gallery – an institution notable for its failure to collect any modernist art in the 1940s and 50s – to play catch-up with trendier spaces such as the Serpentine and the Whitechapel. Originally it promised £10,000 to the person believed to have made the greatest contribution to art in Britain in the previous 12 months. Gilbert & George were early winners, but so was the decidedly cosy Howard Hodgkin. So much for cutting-edge! In 1991, however, the Tate’s new director Sir Nicholas Serota gave the Turner Prize a major revamp. He coaxed Channel 4 into not only doubling the prize money, but into giving the prize the sort of profile previously reserved for the BAFTAs and Bookers. To fit the new format, the number of nominees was dropped from six to four. To ensure a higher degree of trendiness, an age limit was imposed, ensuring that no one over 50 could win the prize. Other features remained veiled in dignified obscurity, however. Where, for instance, do the nominees come from? And is the judging based on the works installed in the Tate, or on the whole year’s achievement, or life achievement, or what? Only the five-person jury – Sir Nicholas Serota, a rich person from Patrons of New Art, and a mixed bag of critics and curators – knows for sure, and they aren’t telling.
Nakedly, obviously, evidently, then, the Turner Prize is not about art per se. It is about publicity for the Tate and the self-conscious positioning of certain strand within British cultural life. Into this steps an obscure politician. Who’s gaining what here? All of which demonstrates how little sense the Telegraph case makes in practical terms. In the first place, since Mr Howells damned all the competitors with a one-size-fits-all critique, he can hardly be accused of trying to affect the outcome of the context. Secondly, since the Turner Prize has long ago failed to shock anyone – except perhaps through the crassness of its method, such as the decision to chose Madonna as last year’s compere – its organisers must be praying for this sort of establishment denunciation. Modernism is dying from, as much as anything, the tendency of the bourgeoisie to cuddle it, rather than to be shocked by it. Mr Howells’ comments were phrased so as to be open to mis-construction as shock. Oh happy day for the pale grinning wraith that is modernism! Oh happy day for the junior minister who hopes to be mentioned by Matthew Collings on prime time television!
All the same, it is interesting to note how broadly Mr Howells has been condemned for this intervention into his own area of ministerial responsibility. I don’t believe for a moment that this is a sign of reverence for that ‘arm’s length’ principle. The problem, surely, is that for whatever reason, he failed to participate in the sort of thoughtless knee-jerk boosterism that the Telegraph and other liberal organs expect of their post-Keynesian cultural commissars. If his message had been framed along the lines of ‘this exhibition demonstrates that Britain’s artists are as innovative and exciting as any in the world’ – if, in other words, it had been a bland but positive little fib – would the Telegraph have devoted a leader to the wickedness of arts ministers who chose to comment on the arts? Yet this perfidy was obviously something that mattered greatly to the Telegraph. How else could they explain the fact that on 1st November, all of pages 4 and 5 were turned over to the Turner Prize?
To some extent, the other broadsheets followed the Telegraph’s line, if not the extent of its enthusiasm for the subject. The Times, for instance, gave the story only cursory news treatment. Instead their critic-in-residence, Miss Rachel Campbell-Johnston, was allowed to deliver the coup de grace: 'Dr Howells should stick to being a politician.' (Presumably this arrangement would have the happy consequence of leaving the field clear for art-critical hard-hitters like, err, Miss Campbell-Johnston.) At the Guardian, the Howells story caught the eye of several commentators, including Richard Ingrams and Mark Lawson. The general consensus was that Mr Howells had been naive, foolish and guilty of speaking out of turn. What do politicians know about anything? According to Mark Lawson,
there are more ideas and intelligence in the work of Yass and Tyson than in, for instance, most speeches by government ministers.
The moral is clear. Art – even bad art – is a sacred realm. As such, it must remain uncontaminated by the grubby stuff of real life, especially particularly grubby aspects like money and power. In light of this, the only decent response for politicians is to pay up and shut up – that, plus conspicuous displays of reverence for art, its creators, curators and tame critics.
Since Mr Howells is by no means a stupid man, why did he step outside these well-established norms? Possibly it was more than a bid for easy publicity. One of the odd things about this story is that Mr Howells is by no means opposed to modern art per se. Rather, like plenty of popular critics – Robert Hughes comes to mind – he is fond of the art that was popular when he was young, but finds today’s contemporary art much harder to handle. So perhaps his status as a former student of Hornsey Art College, and the sort of person who could hang a Richard Long piece in his Westminster office alongside the usual watercolours, confused him into thinking that he could speak as an art-world insider – as an ex-artist, rather than as a politician. If so, he has forgotten how thin-skinned the art establishment is when it comes to criticism, even when that criticism is relatively intelligent, measured and reasonable.
As it happens, I agree with pretty much everything Mr Howells posted on that famous notice-board. ‘Cold’ is the right word for much of what wins Turner Prizes these days. Like him, I rather miss the sheer engagement, passion and personal idiosyncrasy of Abstract Expressionism, which in my own mind at least can trace its lineage back through Manet to Rubens, Velasquez and Titian. I agree with him that most conceptual art is quite boring – not least, as the concepts are grow older and more dog-eared, such works have less and less going for them. It’s a matter of fact that Turner Prize-winning art is ageing into a stale, academic, mannered style right before our weary eyes. I doubt this reality will spoil the party for anyone on the night of the actual prize-giving, but it’s true all the same.
I’m also willing to stand up against the Telegraph and its broadsheet allies and defend the right of Mr Howells to complain as plangently as he wants about the state of the arts. For some reason, the right lacks confidence when it comes to cultural issues, and takes refuge in pretending to be liberal rather than conservative, as much as anything in fear of appearing old-fashioned or outside the pale of polite society. This, I think, is the real reason why the Telegraph took refuge in the wisdom of Prof. Keynes as a defence against Mr Howells. But it doing so, it overlooked the point that subsidy is an implicit value-judgement, full stop. Certainly the state ought to get out of the arts, but until such time as it does so, its personnel should make their prejudices as nakedly apparent as is humanly possible, not only for the way in which this livens up cultural conversation, but also for its benefits in terms of transparency. The alternative is the ongoing feather-bedding of an industry that produces something that no one really wants. Art may not be as important as plenty of other policy areas, but it is not so unimportant as to deserve that sort of fate.
In a happier world, indeed, more Tory politicians would willingly plunge into the waters in which Mr Howells has already made such an interesting set of ripples. Anyone who has ever been bored enough to spend a few hours scanning Dod’s – and yes, since you ask, I used to work in Conservative Central Office – will have noticed, with some amusement, how many Tory MPs list ‘art’ or ‘painting’ as a recreation. What on earth do these people admire or collect? Former Chief Whip Allistair Goodlad, for instance, has amassed an amazing collection of twentieth century British art, all on a low budget, simply because he has a very good eye – but what about his successors? Tim Yeo’s son, and Peter Lilley’s wife, are both painters of some seriousness and distinction – but what about the MPs themselves? Information is virtually non-existent. As it is, alas, we can only imagine what they paint in their spare time. One can speculate about what Boris Johnson paints, but that probably runs the risk of libel. Patrick Mercer may well produce technically flawless yet expressive and indeed deeply atmospheric watercolours depicting the Crimean battlefields he knows so well, although as yet I have no evidence for this.
Most intriguing of all, however, is the little-known fact that Our Leader, Iain Duncan Smith, enjoys painting. His subjects? His methods? Modern or traditional, free or controlled? I think we should be told, and as a matter of urgency, too – although obviously it is always nice to have a hobby to fall back on if one is suddenly left with a great deal of spare time ...
Bunny Smedley is ERO’s arts editor.
Bunny Smedley, November 5, 2002 08:59 AM