Turner On

Last night was date night, when the Hubs and I dashed out of work as early as we could to get to the Tate to check out the Turner 2009 shortlist. Sadly this meant we got there with 40 minutes to closing, but that was enough time to look at the nominees.

Photos below mostly from the Telegraph

Our favourites were:


Lucy Skaer's Whale Skull: this was always going to be a bit of a strange one. Using remains seems to be in this year, with Roger Hiorns using brain matter and dematerialised passenger jets.



He's the hotly tipped favourite but only ranks third in my uneducated mind. I'm bored with shock art (and amused by the reviews of Damien Hirst who appears to still be churning out the same skulls, though at least he's now actually doing it himself). The whale skull was majestic. She'd put the skull behind some MDF walls with face-wide gaps in it. We walked along them and the perspective was so different through each one. If you start on the right, which I think is the way to do it (though this is slightly counter-intuitive), you have what must be the whale's jaw, and progress all the way to the beginnings of vertebrae. I've never seen a whale and the enormity of the skull was astounding. It made me understand why people talk about sea monsters - and aren't sperm whales the dinky ones? I suppose if you viewed it left to right it would give a sense of enormity shrinking to nothing, which probably works better with a skull, though I liked the way it became something bigger than itself. As I walked down it I felt conflicted, which is my benchmark for whether a piece of art works or not. It was quite an experience.

The rest of her showcase was alright, though only Alphabet 2008 was of particular interest to me. I liked the idea of using coal dust as a medium, it fits with my anti-waste ethos.

I didn't see why it was called Alphabet, though I suspect that may be down to my failing vision. I don't think it'll be because she made 26 of them. I know it's a take on Bird in Space, which I like better (it looks great shiny and lit), but what has that got to do to A B C? I don't understand this, which makes it difficult for me to appreciate.



Richard Wright's mural was astounding, and it's this that I hope wins. There was a piece in the Guardian about the nominees where the shapes seen in the mural are given a mention. The Hubs and I spent the longest time (in the 40 minutes) with this because there was just so much! I could have looked at it for hours. We spotted a pheonix, vagina, pagodas, fans, constellations, flames... this was such a fascinating piece because everyone saw it differently and interpreted it in a multitude of ways. It's a piece that will never get boring, and surely immortality is an indicator of excellent art? I don't think it will win though, because of Richard Wright's consumer approach to art (everything is used up then destroyed). There's so little of his work out there that winning something like the turner would hike up prices phenomenally, which I suspect will be viewed at commercialising the Turner (hello, Grayson Perry).



Something definitely worth a mention was not a nominee piece, but Eva Rothchild's Cold Corners . This blew our minds. Scale is one thing but the way it used the room was incredible. That picture doesn't do it justice. Perhaps because we've been looking at decorating the new house, but we're both very conscious of use of space, and this utilised every nook and cranny. She's got a piece at the Frieze, which I'm hoping to go to this weekend between Divali and moving - fingers crossed!

Also worth a mention is the Turner & the Masters exhibition. This was absolutely amazing and the Hubs and I will be going back to it. Essentially it could be taken as highlighting how insecure Turner was, since it takes pieces that he took inspiration from and tried to outdo, and puts them next to each other. For example, when asked to do a companion piece to one of my favourites, A Rising Gale (Willem Van de Velde the Younger), he did Bridgewater Sea-piece, which was basically a mirror image-style piece. The exhibition is really interesting, not just because quite often it is a case of "anything he can do, I can do better, I can do anything (at least as good as) him", but also because quite often he absolutely crashed and burned. There was Rembrandt, Titian, Claude, Poussin ... and I'd say he had a 60% success rate. Gutsy though. I don't know much about Turner other than that he was an unlikely artist. Wrong side of the tracks, etc. This show was so good I plan to go back and learn more. Am gutted I can't make the Curator's talk.