Can anything being produced in this era of pluralism once again shock the audience as did much of what occurred before the age of post modernism? Is there anywhere left to go artistically or have we reached the limit of artistic breakthroughs or the possibility of another venture into radical form? Innovation seems a long way off when anything and everything can be considered as art.
One of the theoretical divisions of modern and contemporary art recognises that the object can assert its own meaning and exist as a purely aesthetic statement or conversely reflect an ethic standpoint which refers to a socially motivated desire to change or affect the social order.
When I see the work of someone like a Phyllida Barlow with an installation endlessly taking over a gallery space there is a distinct feeling of amazement because what has characterised my art from the outset has been the self-enclosed limiting factor of the edge of a canvas or sculpture with a definitive outline.
I think it comes down to the society we have created where the expectation of something for nothing pervades every aspect of the retail market
Are these the natural filters we have come to accept Novelty, boredom and death? Perhaps we of the 21st century can’t see the wood for the trees and will have to wait a century or a millennium to find out what has survived and what was worth preserving but who, or what circumstance, actually render that decision, if indeed it is even rational, remains a mystery.
The candidates for this year’s Turner prize all work with their political and social pasts, injustice, prejudice and colonialism as the reworking of history seemingly exists to teach us lessons. While art has always been utilised as propaganda, those lessons essentially fall on deaf ears.