"It's great to do something that has an effect on British culture"
December 2, 2008 7:34 AM   Subscribe

Mark Leckey has won the Turner Prize. Quote: “I kind of hate the relationship the press in Britain has towards art,” he said. “I hate the way it’s all Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin and Banksy. They expect spectacle and shock. Art is not like that. The art world I know is not like that; it’s a whole other world.” posted by chuckdarwin (16 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Don't miss Leckey's brilliant Fiorucci Made Me Hardcode.

"Described by one commentator as the best thing they'd ever seen in a gallery, Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore is an extended paean to the unadulterated bliss of nocturnal abandon. A documentary of sorts, Leckey's video chronicles the rites of passage experienced by successive generations of British (sub)urban youth".
- Matthew Higgs, ArtForum
posted by jimbaud at 7:55 AM on December 2, 2008 [1 favorite]


Hardcore.
posted by jimbaud at 7:56 AM on December 2, 2008


I prefer "hardcode". It makes nightclubbing sound cyberpunkish.
posted by ardgedee at 7:59 AM on December 2, 2008 [1 favorite]


Birkenhead Represent!
posted by Jofus at 7:59 AM on December 2, 2008


The footage in that film is taken from Wigan Casino: Northern Soul
posted by dydecker at 7:59 AM on December 2, 2008


Birkenhead Represent!

I took a girl out on a date last night, and on the way home, we stopped in the car and started making out. As things got all hot and heavy, I asked her what she'd like me to do next.

"Kiss me where it smells", she replied.

So I drove her to Birkenhead.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 8:07 AM on December 2, 2008 [2 favorites]


"the best thing they'd ever seen" is surely a commen on the commentator, not the art?
posted by mjg123 at 8:14 AM on December 2, 2008


comment... anyway- long live controversial art nonsense - "It exists to promote discussion about contemporary art and it succeeds."
posted by mjg123 at 8:18 AM on December 2, 2008


it’s all Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin and Banksy

wow, hirst is a low-hanging fruit but a banksy backlash? okay, he's right though. all those artists do work that's arresting for two seconds flat and then there's nothing else. his work on the other hand requires commitment, which makes it exclusive. good choice.
posted by krautland at 8:46 AM on December 2, 2008


Oh I can't wait for Serota to retire properly which will mean far, far less concept and novelty based nonsense in this whole charade. YBA's are very, very rubbish indeed generally as he said and have profaned the name of art, but his own slightly better stuff has less legs to stand on than a dismembered slug.
posted by The Salaryman at 9:03 AM on December 2, 2008


"His work, a combination of film, sound, sculpture and performance"

You know, multimedia art is just an awful lot of work to enjoy.
posted by Nelson at 9:31 AM on December 2, 2008


I went to the Tate Britain's Turner show for the first time during a recent speedy trip to London - bringing with me an open mind - and I turned into a furiously gibbering Daily Mail reader by the end. (My head full of expletives and mutterings about "effing art school rejects...my teenager could do that...how stupid do they think we are..christ, what a load of rubbish....").

But the most brilliant bit. When you finally get through the Turner finalist rooms, you empty into a large soothingly white-walled area with nothing but notice boards running around, and long tables with piles of neat tear-off pads and pencils and containers of drawing pins.

By the time you've read dozens of far more witty and even ruder opinions composed by other irate visitors, you feel a whole lot better. A few people even rip and fold their opinion sheets into subversive origami shapes about the "meaning of art" with tiny essays attached. Somehow it turns the experience into something rather jolly and soothing!
posted by Jody Tresidder at 9:45 AM on December 2, 2008


I do like Leckey, but his work can be a bit dry and too clever-by-half, and seemed even more so in the company of Macuga and Islam (though the latter's film of rickshaw drivers was very lovely).

I wish Cathy Wilkes had won, because her stuff makes you feel funny inside, as well as being all clever and engaged with art history and so on - call me old fashioned, but I quite like having an emotional response to art. Also because I put £20 on her to win, and this is the first time I've lost money on the Turner since they gave it to that awful prick Grayson Perry.

Jofus wrote: Birkenhead Represent!

There's someone else from Birkenhead on here?! I thought I'd been bearing the weight of PeterMcDermott's cruel jibes on my own all these years.

posted by jack_mo at 10:01 AM on December 2, 2008


It's funny to hear an artist complain about spectacle who bases an entire piece on re-creating a movie scene, without particular explanation or comment on how that affects the idea of a movie spectacle. Ridley Scott's got a great imagination, so, you know, nice tribute.
posted by gorgor_balabala at 1:57 PM on December 2, 2008


Mark Leckey has won the Turner Prize...

More like Mark Lecner has won the Turkey Prize amirite?
posted by turgid dahlia at 3:27 PM on December 2, 2008


My favorite critique of Banksy's work can be found on the Myspace page of Leckey's band Jack Too Jack.

"A gredendier guard pissing up the wall? The Queen's gonna be pissed!".
posted by jimbaud at 2:34 AM on December 3, 2008


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