The Turner Prize is a funny old game

Do you have to have gone to art school to be a conceptual artist? Or can I (no art or design training) just declare whatever takes my fancy as art? And if I can, what's the point? I've got a heap of stuff in the bedroom now though it isn't as sordid as Tracey's bed.......

Yes indeed, anno!

Sometimes wonder what Turner would say about the winners of and nominees for the prize they named after him.

I got it the first time...very clever (not me!)

What a nice thing it is to be retired!

The whole of GRANSNET I think. I exhausted myself at the weekend with my ailing family visiting, worked all day today and like fool agreed to do tomorrow as a favour as well as Wednesday and Thursday!

Galen Say it out loud to yourself " "Mice Elf* says I am *Mice Elf" "

Or was it Our Ken who confused you?

On the subject of Turner, did anyone watch the programme on BBC last Friday about JMW himself? Found it fascinating and realised how little I knew about both the artist and his work, even though it is so familiar. Want to go and see more of his paintings now [was never a fan of them].

. I am a bear of very little brain!

That's all right then.

Our Ken just came by. He says it is way beyond him.

Mice Elf is very clever I had not twigged that until Greatnan mentioned it.

b*** the Turner prize. I've just got Mice Elf because she spelled it out...am I the thickest person on earth ( not p.c I know, but ok if it's about mice elf )

Now, now Elegran! None of that sexist talk on here....

Definitely beyond our personal something. MiceElf

Plenty of transcendental juxtapositions of the inspirational and the prosaic though, shot through with angst and ecstacy but grounded in state-of-the-art realism.

Perhaps it is beyond our Ken.

MiceElf Thank you, I am suitably confused, but far too embarrassed to admit it

Anno, I should be interested in your deconstruction of, and commentry on, the initial text.

If you were one of the judges we could split the proceeds.

You'd be on a winner with that one, MiceElf, largely because nobody would be able to understand your explanation!

You mean I haven't explained MiceElf? [grin{

'Pseuds' Corner is one of my favourite bits of Private Eye.

I propose entering the outpourings of this forum for the Tate. The material ranges from the monumental to the microscopic. Whilst there is no physicality this is of no consequence to the idea. It is not a narrative or an exploration but an expiation. The final constructions are composites, a synthesis of of intuition and the categories. The 'making' is a method and instrument to contemplate and gaze on 'the idea'. The text indeed 'plays' itself and in playing directs us to contemplate distance and profundity. It is beyond our personal locus, or indeed logos.

Generally speaking, I don't like conceptual art. I accept that anything can be described as art and if people are happy to go to an exhibition of blank canvases, a broken milk bottle, etc., etc., they are very welcome to do so.

My own view of what constitutes "art" is not necessarily that it is pleasing to the eye or that it appeals to everybody but that it has required some degree of skill and training to produce it. Sticking two bricks on the floor next to a bucket does not, to my mind, meet that criteria.

Some years ago DD and I strayed into an exhibition at the Tate Gallery of what looked like bookcases made from clear acrylic sheet. We were then given a sheet of paper explaining what message the artist was conveying through these works.

DD looked at the 'sculptures, read the sheet and said. 'If you have to explain to people in writing what the work of art is all about because it conveys nothing on its own then it is the piece of paper that is the work of art not the painting/sculpture that has been made'.

I have never had any reason to disagree with this. I find that there is much abstract sculpture and art, like the work of Henry Moore that has an inherent beauty in its shape, colour, place in the landscape, so no piece of paper is necessary, but most modern art. If art has to be explained it isn't art.

Just reviving this thread to say what I think about this year's Turner Prize nominees and particularly this one:

'Sehgal doesn’t create objects. He involves us in confrontational situations over at the gallery. People run at you and begin questioning your motives, your aspirations. They pursue you up stairs. They treat you as the object of seriously unserious critical attention.'

I confess to being mystified as to how this and the other works described qualify as 'art'.

Hubertbear I don't think Luddites commented much on art. What you are probably not is a philistine. Does anybody know why Philistines are portrayed as lacking in culture?

We have been to see several of the Turner Prize exhibitions over the years and none of the exhibits have all been worthy of space at the Tate or anywhere else.
I'm not a Luddite - we loved the latest Hockney but I am thinking of entering for the Turner.