Who are biggest prize chumps? It’s no contest
IT’S THAT time of the year again: the Turner Prize is awarded, almost invariably to the most ridiculous nominee, thereby unwittingly giving us all the opportunity for a good laugh. And so which, in this year’s competition to be the most risible of them all, is the winner? Answer: all of them! Or to be more accurate, none of them. The four nominees, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Helen Cammock, Oscar Murillo and Tai Shani, have taken an interesting interpretation of the word “competition” and written to the organisers asking if all four of them could share the prize.
The answer, needless to say, was yes, and in a display of virtue signalling that could be seen from outer space, the noble quartet has proclaimed that their selfless gesture is an act of “solidarity” to unite our fractured society, to which you can only say, pass the sick bag, Alice. Never mind the fact that the country has been tearing itself in two for the past three-and-a-half years: four artists who give every impression of being so up themselves they have come out the other side, have passed up the chance of being a sole winner.
Three of them have also passed up the chance of being the three losers, of course, but given that their actions mean that none of us will ever know which three, it’s trebles and Turner Prizes all round. What’s not to like? Well, everything, really. It’s hard to imagine a group of people who manage to out-luvvie our eco-spouting, private jet-taking luvvie brigade, but this lot have done it. You can say this, though. They’ve certainly managed to unite society. In derision. Have these people no idea how ludicrous they look?
The most preposterous aspect of all of this, and it’s a long list, is that artists and actors alike are among the most competitive people on the planet.
They absolutely hate it when anyone else does well.You need only look at the stories about the shenanigans backstage as the Oscars approach to know that these are people who would sell their own grandmother to establish themselves as the winner and that applies equally across all the
IT HAD to happen. The Catholic Church, which really should know better, is urging young followers to confess to “eco-sins”. How long before that irritating eco-warrior Greta Thunberg is pronounced a living saint?
creative arts. Gore Vidal, no stranger to the dark arts of success and self-promotion, once commented: “It is not enough to win; others must lose.” The Turner lot have taken this and turned it on its head. But which one is closer to the realities of life?
One of the worst fantasies perpetrated on small children by the educational bridge is that everyone can be a winner: they can’t. As those self-same children will soon discover, along with the fact that they have been lied to by the grown-ups in whom they put their trust, is that some people are prettier than others, some richer, some more successful, some more artistically inclined and some prepared to throw their God-given talents down the drain.
AND quite a lot of the time, none of this will be fair. Life is a competition and the sooner you learn that, the better the chance you have of winning it. In no area of life other than in the navelgazing world the Turners inhabit, is anyone ever going to voluntarily give up their own advantages to help anyone else. Apart from saints, of course, but there aren’t a lot of them about. Competition should be actively encouraged. It’s what makes people strive to win and do well and that will benefit the country in which they live.The play Amadeus is based on the rivalry between Mozart and Salieri and while the latter won at the Viennese court, he’d be totally forgotten today were it not for that play.Whereas Mozart? His pushy father had got him composing by the age of five (dad would be arrested for child abuse today), while his son went on to produce the greatest music ever written. Do you think Mozart would have selflessly turned down a prize to share it with others? He’d have taken it, squandered the prize money and achieved even greater heights. Do you think the Turner lot will be the art world equivalents of Mozart? I wouldn’t hold your breath.