For my sins, I have no idea what is happening with the Turner prize as of late. Or Tate Modern, for that matter. Thus I was surprised to come upon an article by Adrian Searle about this year’s Turner prize in The Guardian today. “A deliberately difficult shortlist that will shake up art,” he announces promisingly in the title. “This is a more dour list than usual, with unfamiliar names and few concessions to visual pleasure,” he continues in the byline. He even adds that he is stumped, which attracted me at once. But the work of the shortlisted artists, none of whom I have ever heard of, left me nonplussed. Nay, bemused. By the way, the vaunted artists are Duncan Campbell, Ciara Phillips, James Richards, and Tris Vonna-Michell. Predictably enough, Searle has nothing to offer in the article about the way the shortlist will shake up art. And thus I swiftly came up with an alternative idea of how to shake up art: skip Turner prize. More, skip Tate Modern. Skip Searle’s articles about art, as well. And keep skipping all of the above for as long as you possibly can. That will surely shake up art for good.

Addendum (December 5, 2016)

As luck would have it, I came across this piece on one of my uncharted journeys through my writings only a few hours after I received an electronic-mail message from the Stuckists in London. Today, they are turning out in force to demonstrate against the Turner Prize. They are bored to death by it, or so they claim. Which is why they are exhibiting skulls on posts outside Tate Britain. According to Charles Thomson, co-founder of the Stuckists, “the Turner prize should be shut down before more people end up meeting their demise from sheer boredom.” I cannot but agree. But the best way around the boring Turner prize is to pay it no attention whatsoever. The same holds for contemporary art in its entirety, I hasten to add. Pay it no attention, and it will go away as if by magic. Pace Stuckists, but you are only prolonging the ignoble demise by demonstrating outside Tate Britain year after year ever since 2000. Back then, I was in your ranks, I remember to this day. By now, though, you must be among the very last ones who pay the Turner prize any attention.