Woke activists of the art world need to learn that life isn’t fair
The Turner. The Booker. The Nobel. Name any prize for creative endeavour and with the pleasure of hindsight it’s clear where they got it wrong or at least could have done much better. It’s also evident how politics and fads have always played a part.
But this year’s Turner Prize is something else entirely. At their insistence, it has been shared by the four shortlisted artists in an act of “solidarity”. Pitting migration, patriarchy, civil rights and torture (the predictably worthy subject matters of their entries) against each other would be divisive, they claimed.
You might call that sportsmanlike, but where will the solidarity end? Will the Turner take to heart the mania of inclusiveness and representation, the imperative of social justice, and next year award every resident of the UK the prize? Surely that’s the only fair thing? Wouldn’t that enable omni-justice to rain down? Why should the talentless or those who’ve never actually got around to producing anything artistic be locked out of the award system?
My favourite novel by Esther Freud, Lucky Break, about her acting days starts with an epigraph: “It isn’t fair and don’t be late.” It’s great advice for life in general. But it has particular relevance for those in the creative professions.
Competitors can win, but competitions can’t. There’s always something to complain about with any prize. The winner is too obvious. Too obscure. But competitions are important, and if you enter a competition or sign up as a judge you have to accept there can’t be omni-justice. You don’t have to enter into the pact, but if you do you should respect it.
When I was a Booker judge and the longlist was being compiled, there were several novels that didn’t make it that were good enough, but there had to be a longlist. When we announced the shortlist, we didn’t suddenly turn around and spit on the titles that were cut. When we chose the winner, we didn’t change our good opinion of the other shortlistees. Our job was to pick a winner.
Prizes aren’t just about recognising merit. They are meant to be marketing enterprises as well, and to elevate a work of quality (not equality). At their best, prizes should lead the public to new and exciting work. It’s hard to promote a crowd.
The decision earlier this year to split the Booker Prize, by awarding it to two writers, was the jury failing to do its job. I was convinced Margaret Atwood would win (and my belief had nothing to do with her talent as a writer). Perhaps the split award was the fashionable mind unable to choose between Atwood’s feminism and the compulsion to give a black writer a nod, unable to ascertain how best justice should be served, unable to figure out which book would best bestow a glow of righteousness on the jury.
The Galley Beggar press (a small imprint I have a lot of time for) then complained that their candidate, Lucy Ellman, did not receive the Booker. I hope this was merely a wily ruse to boost sales rather than genuine indignation, because, again, no one forces you to enter a competition.
No one forces you to write a novel. No one forces you to publish a novel. No one forces you to create a work of art. It isn’t fair, and if you don’t like it, stay at home. All you can hope for is that some of the quality, whether it’s encouraged or ignored, will emerge and survive.