It May be Rubbish, but is it Art?
I forget where we are in the passing eras of “Art”. Post-modern? Pre-Columbian? Intramural?
But when “Art” freely swipes from a post-hippie protester, and borrows from yet another “artist”—and wins a prize in the process—we are definitely post-shark.
Artist Mark Wallinger won Britain’s prestigious Turner Prize for a fiercely anti-war exhibit based on a lone protester’s six-year vigil outside British parliament.
“State Britain,” which replicated the posters of peace protester Brian Haw, won Wallinger the $51,000 payout that comes with Britain’s best-known and most provocative art award.
“Brian Haw is a remarkable man who has waged a tireless campaign against the folly and hubris of this government’s foreign policy,” Wallinger said as he collected the prize in Liverpool, northern England. “For six-and-a-half years, he has remained steadfast in Parliament Square. He is the last dissenting voice in Britain.”
No, I think he’s the last guy to take a shower in Britain—which is saying something.
Most of his paraphernalia was impounded by police last year. But Wallinger meticulously reproduced everything from Haw’s weather-beaten poster decrying President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair as “baby killers” to the demonstrator’s tarpaulin shelter and tea-making area. The items were exhibited at the Tate Britain gallery in central London.
The Turner Prize judges said Wallinger’s exhibit “demonstrates art’s unique ability to engage with contemporary political issues” and managed to “communicate an unpalatable political truth.”
How about some “unpalatable political truth”?
I don’t know about babies—but “Art” is stone cold dead.