Has this year's Turner Prize snubbed ‘traditional’ art?

The increasing popularity of the Prize and its support of younger artists, alongside those with established careers, resulted in a widening gap between the aims of the Prize and the critical response. The scrutinising attention from mainstream media placed tremendous pressure on the artists involved. The younger artists seemed to become scapegoats for the British press to dismiss new practices that were being celebrated abroad. In this year Saatchi launched his Young British Artists series of exhibitions which presented the work of twenty-six artists over four years.

Quotes

‘What I have to say is probably not worth anything. I think there will be turkey on the table this Christmas.’

– Grenville Davey as quoted in The Evening Standard, November 1992

‘The day after the Channel 4 programme I realised that all the works were simply ideas. To my annoyance they were ideas devoid of feeling..’

– ALetter from member of the public to Tate, November 1992

‘No sculptors of the human body, no figurative or landscape painter, no one whose skills and subjects might be recognised by Rodin, Michelangelo or Moore, by Constable or by the very Turner whose name lends the prize its only distinction.’

– Brian Sewell, The Evening Standard, November 1992

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