Political works to the fore in ‘incredibly strong year’

It seems that Mark Wallinger is the favourite to win this year’s Turner Prize with his recent show State Britain, which ‘painstakingly recreated the protest slogans of activist Brian Haw inside the cavernous spaces of Tate Britain’

This year’s citation is for his recent show State Britain, which painstakingly recreated the protest slogans of activist Brian Haw inside the cavernous spaces of Tate Britain:



I’ll leave aside my thoughts on the ‘mascot’ Brian Haw for now and quote this comment on Wallinger’s ‘art’:

Lozenge - Madrid:

If that is what Wallington did (painstakingly recreated the protest slogans of activist Brian Haw), why hasn’t Brian Haw been nominated for the Turner Prize, after all he should own all the artistic rights? Or is it that, what he did were only signs and not art and when they were painstakingly recreated, they became art? If so, couldn’t Haw sue for plagiarism, or does that only happen in literature and music? So, when did it become art and whose art is it?

Not everyone agrees and, after all, Mark is a bloody nice chap.

BluebellCottage - Manchester:

Mark is a totally fantastic guy and artist. He inhabits the moral high ground, and sometimes seems to be able to do no wrong. He created a ‘simulacrum’ of Brian Haw’s protest piece. By so doing he made it art, he ‘validated’ it. He launched it into the collective subconscious that we all are a part of, by using not only the institution but also the geographical location of the Tate Gallery to ram home his point. For God’s sake he deserves the prize, this year.

‘BluebellCottage’!?

Right On Baby!

See also: What price a Haw original? Er…nothing