Pondering the Turner Prize 2014

As part of the candidating process for ordained ministry, I have to reflect theologically on a theological book, a non-theological book, a film and a cultural event. For the latter, I have chosen to look at the 2014 Turner Prize, with the exhibition having been held at the Tate Britain in London. I managed to get along a couple of times to see the four artists’ work; the nominees were James Richards, Clara Phillips, Tris Vonna-Michell and the eventual winner, Duncan Campbell.

Richards was nominated for his video Rosebud, which manipulates and weaves together photographs taken from, among other sources, images found in a Tokyo public library censored to remove anything that might be considered erotic or arousing, VHS videos rescued from charity shops and original close-up footage shot by Richards himself. The result is a thirteen-minute collage overlaid with a soundtrack made up of amplified incidental noises in response to the visuals, which according to the exhibition guide results in “a restricted set of image sensations” that explores the joy of the act of looking. Some of shots are quite shocking, such as a close-up of a boot pressing hard on a man’s head; others retain a clear eroticism despite the censor’s best efforts, and many explore the boundaries between interior and exterior, public and private. The images quickly shift from one to another with the key action often taking place out of shot, more implied than spelt out, and the guide argues that the close-ups and high definition presentation makes even the mundane sensual.

Vonna-Michell’s work, Postscript, consists of two short films and a collection of images of such disconnected objects as fragments of old letters and a half-eaten Creme Egg, some of which feature in said films. These are both performance pieces in which the artist tells stories of searching for clues to help him make sense of his identity as a German-born man raised in Southend. They’re delivered at a breathless pace in brief snippets, sometimes repeated and often disjointed and anxiously delivered, a bit like the verbal equivalent of a random walk, while we watch a collection of slides that bear varying degrees of relationship to the narratives, but which in places provide something of a springboard for them. The first involves a search for the French sound artist, Henri Chopin, who lived close to where the artist grew up and whom his father says can illuminate why Vonna-Michell ended up in Essex, and the second an attempt to make sense of his parents’ stories about Berlin at the beginning of the Cold War. There is a vulnerability in this work, as childhood experiences and longing for meaning are interspersed with fictional twists, resulting in ultimately frustrated journeying.

Phillips is, unlike the other three, a print artist and her exhibition for the Prize involved the bringing together of various previous works. Her style is predominantly collaborative, and this was reflected in the spoken alphabet booth, the words having come from conversations during some printing work with women’s groups in 2010. The walls were adorned with recurring prints, most abstract-appearing (Phillips utilises mistakes and quirks in the printing process) and others various poses by a female model, and there was a large ‘OK’ on one of the walls. Finally, a large sculptured letter ‘K’ was used to present various prints from previous collaborations.

Campbell’s winning contribution was a film called It for Others, which I have to confess I didn’t see in its entirety, but which offers a profound and compelling discussion of the impact of commoditisation of art. It was inspired by a 1953 film by Chris Marker and Alan Resnais called Statues Also Die, about the “objectification and fetishisation” of African art in the face of western consumer demand, focusing on the Benin sculptures in the British Museum. As Campbell’s anxious female narrator points out, when discussing them, the Museum’s director conveniently overlooked uncomfortable aspects of and questions around colonialism when interviewed, and robbed of their original purpose and meaning, these everyday items become dead. Campbell takes this further, and as we’re shown various African masks, we’re also invited to ponder how art is ascribed its monetary value. A later part of the piece uses anthropomorphic food advertising using various scenarios around a dining table. Another section features a striking original piece of choreography by the Michael Clark company, spelling out ideas from Marx’s Das Kapital. Perhaps the most powerful bit of the film, though, is an exploration of how images of IRA martyrs came to be used for commercial and political aims during the Troubles – the famous image of Joe McCann by a fire ended up on Christmas cards!

My reaction to the four pieces, which I’ve outlined in the order one was directed around them in the gallery, was varied. Richards’ film got me thinking a little about quantum mechanics, in which the act of looking determines the state of an object (think Schrödinger’s Cat); seeing things very close-up and/or from the edges lends a different perspective to the act of looking, in which meanings aren’t always clear, yet to be fully formed by seeing clearly. I wonder how much of our perception of God is like that… I found Vonna-Michell’s films fascinating as well as frustrating; they invite us to ask ourselves what forms our sense of identity: how far is it to do with our parents and origins, especially in an age where many are keen to trace family trees, the things of our past and inner sense of who we are, or something found by looking beyond this to the bigger picture of the story of God?

I must confess that Phillips’ prints didn’t particularly grab me in any meaningful way, but I did find Campbell’s film compelling. The questions raised around the value we place on objects and indeed people are highly pertinent, especially in this neo-liberal and consumerist age with its Black Fridays and appropriation of seemingly anything for monetary gain, and they link in with some of the themes in my non-theological book by Owen Jones, which I’ll explore in a later post. Moreover, it got me thinking about how things might be different if we viewed the world not in these terms, but through a lens which tries to reflect the value God puts on people and things.