The Turner Prize is justly celebrated for raising all sorts of questions in the public ind about art and its place in our lives. Unfortunately, however, the intellectual climate surrounding the fine arts is so vaporous and self-satisfied that few of these questions are ever actually addressed, let alone answered.
Why is it that all of us here--presumably members of the arts community--probably know more about the currents of thought in contemporary science than those in contemporary art? Why have the sciences yielded great explainers like Richard Dawkins and Stephen Gould, while the arts routinely produce some of the loosest thinking and worst writing known to history? Why has the art world been unable to articulate any kind of useful paradigm for what it is doing now?
I'm not saying that artists should have to "explain" their work, or that writers exist to explain it for them, but that there could and should be a comprehensible public discussion about what art does for us, what is being learned from it, what it might enable us to do or think or feel that we couldn't before.
Most of the public criticism of the arts is really an attempt to ask exactly such questions, and, instead of just priding ourselves on creating controversy by raising them, trying to answer a few might not be such a bad idea. The sciences rose to this challenge, and the book sales those authors enjoy indicate a surprising public appetite for complex issues, the result of which has been a broadening social dialogue about the power and beauty and limits of science. There's been almost no equivalent in the arts. The making of new culture is, given our performance in the fine and popular arts, just about our only growth industry aside from heritage cream teas and land-mines, but the lack of a clear connection between all that creative activity and the intellectual life of the society leaves the whole project poorly understood, poorly supported and poorly exploited.
If we're going to expect people to help fund the arts, whether through taxation or lotteries, then surely we owe them an attempt at an explanation of what value we think the arts might be to them.
And if I had another two minutes of your time I'd have a go.
--Brian Eno, from a speech in 1995 for a major (or perhaps the major--I don't know anything about it) British art prize
Posted by eshtine at September 25, 2004 04:37 PM | TrackBackStill speaking from the Lan House limbo...
One thing I love, besides Eno´s intelligence, is his use of the English language. Always a pleasure to read, for the ideas *and* the word-flow, and a both challenge and a delight to translate.
Thanks again, Angela!
Posted by: Lucilla at October 2, 2004 03:58 PMA little bit of research :). It seems it is the most prestigious award in terms of exhibition art:
"The Turner Prize has been awarded annually, with the exception of 1990, since 1984. Since 1991 it has been given to 'a British artist under 50 for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work in the twelve months preceding 31st May'."
I completely agree with Lucilla (hi!) about Mr. Eno's style :) - it's a treat indeed!