Anish Kapoor, who received the award in 1991, stated in an interview that he welcomed the Turner Prize’s political flip within the context of an artwork world “obsessive about cash.”
“I dare to consider it as an anticapitalist transfer in miniature,” Kapoor stated, including that every one the nominees had been “very clear that theirs is a social agenda, that artwork could make deep and actual psychic change.”
Such arguments ring hole to the Turner Prize’s long-term critics. Michael Sandle, a self-described “radical traditionalist” who has by no means been nominated for the award, stated, “It’s all effectively and good having these views, that are most likely real — however the place is the bloody artwork?”
“That’s what I need to see, expressed powerfully by an artist,” he stated: The prize’s organizers ought to cease attempting to “get on any trendy bandwagon.”
However artists working collectively isn’t such a break with the previous, stated Iwona Blazwick, the creative director of the Whitechapel Gallery, a London museum. “100 years in the past, the avant-garde was outlined by teams,” she stated. “The jury was completely right in recognizing that this can be a very highly effective, creative impulse. It doesn’t imply that we are going to by no means see a prize for portray or a single practitioner.”
Even a number of the nominated artists, nevertheless, have criticized Tate for attempting to spice up its credibility by embracing social justice traits. Simply days after B.O.S.S.’s nomination was introduced, in Could, the group posted a message on Instagram accusing arts establishments of “exploitative practices in prize tradition.” The assertion added that, for award organizers, “Black, brown, working class, disabled, queer our bodies are fascinating, shortly dispensable, however by no means sustainably cared for.”