YOU know it is a different year at the art world's most controversial annual award when regular critics cannot summon the outrage to protest anymore.
The Stuckists, a group of art agitators who ridicule conceptual art, are not bothering to demonstrate against the Turner Prize this year.They say, in a flyer, that it is full of "predictable and pathetic level of elitist repetition that is not worth bothering about".
Perhaps they also could not find anything as obviously outrageous or controversial in this year's Turner Prize show to rail against. Three of the artists, James Richards, Tris Vonna-Michell and Duncan Campbell, who lives and works in Glasgow, present films which require time, perseverance, and a certain amount of sitting down and cogitation. To fully appreciate this year's show is not required to summon up faux outrage about "shock", but instead it involves a lot of sitting, seeing and thinking. There are three dark rooms and a lot of imagery and sound to absorb.
Campbell's film, It For Others, is a very strong but long work inspired by historical art and colonialism (and another film, Marker & Resnais's Statues Also Die from 1953). Campbell's work is also more than 50 minutes long.
The brightest and most obviously accessible work is the room full of more than 400 prints made by Ciara Phillips, who like Campbell and Vonna-Michel, attended Glasgow School of Art.
Her room is bright and vivacious and colourful and largely made in her studio in Glasgow and Glasgow Print Studio.
Overall it is not a Turner Prize show which will generate those "shocking" headlines, but four fine artists, three who just happen to have strong links to Scotland, the year before it comes to the Tramway in Glasgow.
Who will win? Campbell's work is very strong.
Tris Vonna-Michell's work, a lot of it very personal, which may also sway the judges.
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