Yes you read that correctly.
I make the comment after a visit to the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne which is hosting an exhibition by the shortlisted artists for last year's Turner Prize. It seems strange referring to a few days ago as last year but there it goes.
Four so called artists are featured, two talented and two not and guess who won? I wanted to go to the exhibition to vent my spleen about modern art. I could go on about this for hours and probably have in the past. Everyday items do not art make. I've been to art exhibitions featuring old washing machines, toilets, coathangers and a ladder. I have been to exhibitions where it's been impossible to decide which is the art and which is just part of the building.
So I went along to have a go at the total ineptitude of modern art and I was well on the way to doing that in the first gallery which featured some form of steel installation and a steel tub containing a fountain with some kind of nonsense about limiting the chaos of the modern world by obliterating it with the sound of water.
The winner had a few works on display, one of which included another contraption with barbed wire and net curtains (yes seriously). Then they outdid themselves with a number of pieces of art featuring higgledy piggledy arch files in steel shelving with slabs of concrete in them.
So far so modern art typical. Read the above and you will realise that my garden is an art installation as it has a fountain. I often sit close to it in order to block out the noise of the outside world like the bin lorry coming or our neighbours talking. My study is an art installation too as it has a lot of higgledy piggledy arch lever files that look remarkably like the ones on display. The other four-fifths just thinks it's me being my untidy self but now I know it's me being an artist. I might enter my study for the Turner Prize but it might be a bit difficult transporting my whole house to London as the artwork would have to be in its usual situation.
But then everything went wrong with the exhibition as we found the other two artists intriguing. One of them had likened lockdown and COVID to rafts. So far so good you might say that's another nonsense idea. But then things improved. The artist shot footage of people talking about lockdown and mental health and there was a lengthy film also featuring a Dagenham choir and orchestra and original music which was both tuneful and poignant. As if that wasn't enough the fourth artist focused her work on Windrush with some lovely large drawings.
How the office files won the prize goodness only knows. Perhaps genuine talent is a drawback in the Turner Prize. Of course the prize always has to go to something unfathomable and the film and the Windrush pieces didn't meet this criteria. They were understandable.
Which takes me back to a conversation I had on Wymondham Railway Station at the start of our trip. A friendly gentleman was on the opposite platform. He seemed a bit lost and shouted across. "Am I on the right platform for Cambridge?"
"No you need to be over here," I replied.
We got into conversation. He came from India but was working over here as a lecturer in mechanical engineering and had been staying over Christmas and the New Year with a friend. It was his first time on Norfolk.
"Have you been to the North Norfolk coast," I asked.
"No but we went to Cromer and Sheringham," he replied.
Obviously not a lecturer in Geography. So I outlined the delights of Blakeney, Cley, Wells Next The Sea, and even Hunstanton et al. I'm very quick to promote all those at the drop of a hat. I dropped a hat once in a puddle but that's a story for another day.
My new friend said he would like to become a British Citizen but had to work and pay tax for five years before that could happen. I wish him well. He did say he had met with some animosity over being a drain on the NHS whilst not being British. The usual kind of things aimed by ignorant people at those from another country with doctorates in particular subjects (mechanical engineering in this case).
Now to finish the Towner exhibition. The artists we liked were Rory Pilgrim and Barbara Walker and those who troubled us in the usual modern art kind of way were Jesse Darling and Ghislaine Leung. Jesse Darling won the prize. I hope people enjoy her arch files display with concrete as a supposed metaphor for modern life as the exhibition continues until April.
More about our trip tomorrow.