Notes on the new culture white paper

The government has released a new white paper on culture and the arts – something that should be welcomed, since there hasn’t been anything on the subject for decades.

Not only are the arts and culture crucial for general wellbeing and a positive force in terms of education and development, they are hugely important for the economy of the UK – and not just in London.

But where the white paper could have been a positive force, even a quick reading illustrates that it’s full of empty promises, with words such as “support” and “encourage” rendered meaningless by lack of commitments on funding (even though it specifically quotes the Prime Minister as an enthusiast of “public-funded” arts and culture) and by the government’s own policies on, say, education, where it fully intends to remove all schools from having to teach the national curriculum that this paper says has importance to culture and arts.

The devil is always in the detail – or the lack thereof. So here goes, with an analysis of approximately half of the document in question.

On page 5, in the introduction by Ed Vaizey, the minister of state for culture, communications and creative industries, it states: “The increased appetite for culture was evident after Culture Secretary Chris Smith introduced free admission to museums in 2001.”

This is disingenuous, since 2001 saw a re-introduction of free admission.

The 1980s had seen attacks on cultural public spending, and pressures from the Conservative government of the day to introduce admission saw many museums and galleries do so.

Those that didn’t – including the British Museum, the Tate and the National Gallery – saw visitor numbers rise, while some that introduced charging saw substantial declines. The V&A introduced a £5 admission in 1997 and saw visitor numbers halved. (1)

And post-2001, the white paper says, that was repeated as, “in the next decade, visitor numbers soared” when admission fees were dropped.

The paper quotes Chancellor George Osborne in his last autumn statement as saying that our “creative industries are ... ‘one of the best investments we can make as a nation’.” So let's look for the investment.

It invokes the Bard, while Mr Vaizey himself also notes that it will “look at how culture can be used in place-making – and if ever a town was shaped by culture it is Stratford-on-Avon, where every year Shakespeare brings 4.9 million visitors to the town”. This is perhaps unfortunate, given what is happening in the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ – and not least Lancaster (2), where most museums are on the cusp of closure as a direct result of cuts to local government funding, even as the city tries to utilise its own extraordinary heritage to draw visitors in.

The introduction notes that: “When we look at new models for funding, we find that our experience with Shakespeare shows us the way. In Barking a community-focussed outdoor production of The Merchant of Venice is being crowdfunded to the tune of £80,000 and has raised £25,000 from a local property company”.

Yet only a few pages earlier, the first words in the white paper, after the contents, are:

“If you believe in publicly-funded arts and culture as I passionately do, then you must also believe in equality of access, attracting all, and welcoming all.

“Rt Hon David Cameron MP”

“Publicly-funded arts and culture” now appears to have a new definition – crowdfunding (which requires disposable income) and gifts from business.

On page 8, it states: “Everyone should enjoy the opportunities culture offers, no matter where they start in life.

“We will put in place measures to increase participation in culture, especially among those who are currently excluded from the opportunities that culture has to offer.

“In particular, we will ensure that children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are inspired by and have new meaningful relationships with culture.”

It’s difficult to imagine that anyone would disagree with this.

The document explains that the new apprenticeships levy will mean that “our larger cultural organisations” will be expected to “take on apprentices and promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace.” Expectation, though, does not mean anything to back it up.

Funded bodies will need to publish strategies for increased access (which will cost them resources, of course).

On page 9, it states that the government will work with various bodies to promote culture as good for wellbeing, while a “new £40 million Discover England fund will showcase” the new programmes, including UK City of Culture, the Great Exhibition of the North.

It’s simply unfortunate that, at the same time, Lancashire County Council (as just one example) is planning on axing “40 libraries, five museums and two adult education centres”.

These include the cuts impacting on Lancaster, plus many, many more, including Blackpool tram maintenance, which will presumably not be good for an area that is already seriously struggling. (3)

All the subsequent talk of “new cultural partnerships” and a “Great Place scheme” and “Heritage Action Zones in England” is meaningless in the face of such devastating cuts and losses.

“We will encourage councils and owners to make empty business premises available to cultural organisations on a temporary basis.”

Because “cultural organisations” can just spring up suddenly and take over such premises and put something on without any other resources that require financing. Oh, wait – that’s where the crowdfunding and business patronage come in (not the PM’s “publicly-funded” bit, you note).

“Technology offers many opportunities to bring our culture to many more people in many different ways. We will work with our cultural institutions to make the UK one of the world’s leading countries for digitised public collections and use of technology to enhance the online experience of users.”

You won’t be able to look at anything in the flesh, but we’re going to digitise Lancaster’s collections so that you can look at them online after the museums are closed (it won’t help the city itself – unless you have to pay to view – and it’ll create and sustain bugger all in the way of jobs, but whoopy-do! It’s digital!

If this isn’t (an extreme but entirely logical interpretation of) the case, then it’s just more meaningless twaddle. Is there any evidence that people don’t go to museums and galleries because the ‘online digital experience’ isn’t what it could be?

Personally, I never use audio guides or anything other than brief notes when visiting an exhibition etc – because it gets in the way, in my opinion: as do those concentrating on such things rather than the exhibits.

Page 10 sees talk of the UK’s global “soft power” (not the bombs that gave us our “mojo” back) and of building on the “GREAT Britain campaign”, which has “increased investment” (it doesn’t say from where, but this will apparently attract “world-class events to the UK”).

This year, “we will support Shakespeare Lives”, although at no point does it elucidate on what concrete form that government “support” will take.

Page 11 notes that: “We have a successful model of cultural investment in which public funding works alongside earned income, private sector finance and philanthropy. This mixture of income streams provides the basis for a thriving and resilient cultural sector.”

Well, except where the public funding is withdrawn (see Lancashire etc), while it’s difficult to see how the ad hoc nature of the proposal that councils and businesses should loan out empty properties will in any way promote stability and, therefore, quality.

“We will continue to support growth through investment and incentives”. Interesting that it does not mention the public funding that it quotes the Prime Minister stressing.

Of course, there are forms of VAT refunds to help, while a new tax relief for museums and galleries is to be introduced next year (someone tell Lancashire to hang on!)

“We will establish a new Commercial Academy for Culture to improve and spread commercial expertise in the cultural sectors,” because making money is what culture is all about or should be – see, Lancashire: that’s been your problem.

There’ll be a new Private Investment Survey and “tailored reviews” and a “wide-ranging review of the museums sector” ...

The paper makes clear that investment in culture has “enormous economic value” (p13) – “in 2014, the economic contribution of museums, galleries, libraries and the arts was £5.4 billion,” while “heritage tourism accounts for 2% of GDP, contributing £26 billion per year” (p16) and “research by the British Council shows that cultural attractions are the most commonly mentioned factor in terms of what makes the UK an attractive place to visit while the arts was the third most commonly mentioned reason”.

On page 13: “it [the white paper] explains how the government will help to secure the role of culture in our society”.

As a whole, the paper makes much of saying that the arts and culture are important for all and should be available to all. You’ll find absolutely no disagreement here.

It says that all “state-funded schools” must provide a broad and balanced curriculum, nurturing the “spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils”. Again, no disagreement.

Apparently the national curriculum “sets the expectation” that pupils will study cultural subjects. “New, gold-standard GCSEs and A levels have been introduced in these subjects”. (p23)

Unfortunately, since academies and free schools do not have to teach the national curriculum, and all schools are set to be academised ...

In fact, let’s be even clearer. While academies and free schools are subject to that “broad and balanced curriculum”, the funding agreement simply means that “they are required to ensure their curriculum:

“includes English, maths and science;

“includes Religious Education, although the nature of this will depend on whether the school has a faith designation;

“secures access to independent, impartial careers advice for pupils in years 9-11; and

“includes sex and relationship education (SRE).” (4)

On page 22, it says: “The majority of the organisations supported by Arts Council England and the Heritage Lottery Fund are committed to working with children and young people, while schemes such as the Family Arts Festival and the Summer Reading Challenge are crucial in introducing young families to their local cultural organisations, especially libraries”.

Excellent. Except where those libraries have closed or are slated to close. See Lancashire – and beyond. As of August 2015, 337 libraries have closed in the UK since 2009-10. (5)

On page 23, we learn that there’s going to be a new “cultural citizens programme” [sic – I don’t know what happened to the possessive apostrophe]. The government will “encourage schools” to use the pupil premium for cultural education, while the Pupil Premium Awards will “highlight the benefits of cultural education”.

This is a close look at just under half the white paper. You can find it all here.

But it should be clear from this that, while the general tone is entirely agreeable, it is nothing to get excited about, for the reasons made very clear above. It’s all sleight of hand; appearing to give (a little) with one hand while removing a lot with the other.

Or perhaps the Bard might have suggested that it was full of a sort of “sound and fury, Signifying nothing”.

Sources

(1)        http://www.museumsassociation.org/campaigns/free-admission-and-the-lottery

(2)        http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/mar/27/lancaster-city-culture-museum-closures?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

(3)        http://www.garstangcourier.co.uk/news/local/revealed-40-libraries-five-museums-and-two-adult-education-centres-among-massive-cuts-announced-by-lancashire-county-council-1-7574160

(4)        https://montrose42.wordpress.com/tag/academies-dont-have-to-teach-the-national-curriculum/

(5) http://schoolsweek.co.uk/nicky-morgan-library-campaign-branded-a-hollow-gesture-after-closures/

Cultural outings after a bit of a shock

It was a relief to see the back of June, a month that had not started with any sense that it would produce a major ‘event’, but took only a few days to announce that it was going to be memorable.

The event in question was The Other Half having a heart attack. Don’t panic – it sounds more dramatic than it actually was.

There was no clutching at chest and/or keeling over.

And the first responder, the London Ambulance Service paramedics, the medical, ward and support teams at Bart’s were all absolutely magnificent and have my (our) eternal gratitude and appreciation.

I've not personally seen the NHS in action like that, but it makes you very aware of just how valuable it is.

After four nights, he was discharged and is now doing rehab stuff, practising being a cat and feeling faintly embarrassed at having been signed off for two months, because he feels okay in himself.

If we both needed an urgent motive to quit smoking, that was it.

So, it’s all been a tad distracting – hence no posts on this blog for over a month.

Panorama from Queen's Promenade, Ramsey

And in the middle of it all, I had to fly out and back in a day to the Isle of Man for a family funeral – an experience that was more enjoyable than expected, but quite surreal at times.

It’s 40-plus years since I was on the island and, since I was so young then, I have limited memories of it. I had forgotten – or perhaps I had never fully realised – just how rural it is.

The taxi ride from the airport at the south of the island to Ramsey in the north took me over the mountains.

Fog was clinging to the bleak hills, which made one appreciate the dangers of the TT racers who had only recently been speeding along the narrow roads. There have been 243 deaths at TT and Manx Grand Prix races since they were first staged in 1911 – one this year.

'You has chips. We wants chips'

By late afternoon and my return journey, the cloud had lifted, leaving a view from the mountains down to the sea, which also serves to give one a sense of just how small an island it is.

Having arrived in the rain – stepping down onto the tarmac from the plane at Ronaldsway to the smell of manure – I found myself in Ramsey just as the drizzle tapered off. Wandering around in the damp, I recognised elements of the harbour, where my grandfather had taken me to buy fish fresh off the boats when we holidayed on the island.

I had chips for lunch – from a chippy where the menu board advertised “posh coffee” for £2 – and found myself feeding seagulls who had swooped in at the mere smell of chips. It was entirely apt, since my love of gulls stems from those childhood holidays in Ramsey, when I would wake to the sound of their shrieking.

Anyway, all of this means that you won’t be getting lengthy reviews for a number of things that we have seen since ‘The Event’ (as I feel like to euphemise it). As the medical staff made quite clear, rehabilitation does not mean enforced 24/7 bed rest.

Pirates of Penzance – left, Alex Weatherhill 

But I’ll start by mentioning the all-male Pirates of Penzance that we saw at Hackney Empire a couple of weeks ago.

We had booked not knowing that it was be an all-male production, simply that it was G&S, but it was an absolute hoot.

Particular mentions should go to Alex Weatherhill as Ruth and Alan Richardson as Mabel.

Watch out for future productions by Sasha Regan’s company – they’ve done similar productions before and hopefully will do so again.

It’s also worth noting that the Tate Britain’s Barbara Hepworth exhibition has opened.

Not helped by my inexperience in looking at abstract sculpture, I didn’t find it earth-shattering.

Which is not to say I didn’t enjoy it. The guarea pieces, carved from “great logs” have a beauty that seems to radiate something very tranquil.

Corinthos by Barbara Hepworth

Hepworth talked of ‘tunnelling’ through the wood and you can let yourself get lost in the curvaceous channels into and through it.

But in general, the exhibition really only surges into life at the end, with a room that aims to recreate a pavilion where some of her bronzes were displayed in the Netherlands half a century ago, and which the artist herself considered as a perfect way to show them.

Indeed, more generally, Hepworth commented on the link between a work and where it is displayed when she noted that “one of the functions of sculpture is to fulfil the demands and conditions of a given site”. The two should not be divorced if the culture is to fully work.

Suddenly, in this final room, you have the sense of what influenced Hepworth so much – nature: and how much better her pieces work in a setting that reflects that rather than a more sterile room.

Ham from the 'ultimate black pig'

And as if that wasn’t enough cultural hijinks, after a 16-year gap, we were finally lured back into the cinema last Friday.

I say “we”, but I’ve been the particularly reluctant cinema goer over the years; dischuffed with the actual experience of going to the cinema and also with the amount of Hollywood tat aimed at an adolescent male audience.

Don’t get me wrong, that audience deserves being catered for by the industry as much as any other, but not to the exclusion of others.

And with the UK having largely binned our own film industry and decided simply to import whatever Hollywood churns out, I felt disengaged from the entire enterprise.

Admittedly, I then ‘discovered’ foreign-language films – and a present of a DVD player allowed me to watch quite a few.

Where there is tapas, there are pardon peppers

While more recent years seems to have brought some improvements in what’s being made, I’ve waited for the DVDs rather than going to see them on cinema release.

Well, finally there was a film I didn’t want to wait any more months to see.

It has French origins and is the epitome of charm, sophistication and erudition.

I speak, of course, of Minions.

Having booked for the Vue at Islington, we needed to eat first, so tried La Farola a short walk away, where we enjoyed very pleasant tapas.

The Lomo iberico de bellota is apparently the “utimate black pig” and, seasoned with smoked paprika and sea salt, delicate slices are an absolute taste delight, with a good deal of complexity.

Green Gordal olives were huge and tasty; the padron peppers were fine (if not including any surprise hotties), while mushrooms were good too: the boquerones might have been Calabrian, but were a reminder of sunny Collioure, and the pan con tomate came on a scrummy, wafer-light, chargrilled bread.

Hurrah for silliness

Anyway, Minions was also our first 3D film – and that itself was rather enjoyable.

The film itself was great fun – utter silliness, but there’s a place for that. Some critics have been rather snooty about it, complaining that the plot is a bit thin.

It probably is, but it was not the sort of film where that bothered me. I didn’t want to see it for the ‘plot’, but for what it does very effectively, which in essence is a series of gags and sketches.

The opening – marvellously dryly narrated by the wonderful Geoffrey Rush – sees the eponymous yellow characters going through a number of bosses as they seek an evil being to serve.

Not only is that an establishing sequence in terms of giving us the minions’ history, it also establishes the sketch-like nature of the film.

No complaining from me – it provided plenty of laughs.

The initial smell of popcorn was almost overpowering when we entered the foyer, but the seating was as comfortable as anything I could remember.

So perhaps it won’t be another 16 years before I enter a cinema again. In fact, I think Ted 2 has just opened.

And the prize goes to ... Turner

Peace – Burial at Sea

Poet Kenneth Roxworth once described the English painter, JMW Turner, as a “romantic abstract expressionist”, and more than one commentator has sought to link him directly to the Impressionists and, more recently still, to modern, abstract art.

But, rather akin to people describing some upcoming film star as the ‘new Gable’ or the ‘new Bogart’ etc, that merely illustrates an apparent human obsession with taxonification, pigeon-holing and tribalism, at the same time as revealing limits on our willingness to accept the new.

Turner is Turner is Turner.

He was influenced by and subsequently influenced many others: it’s incredibly easy to see his influence on Monet, for instance, but one wouldn't call the latter a ‘Turnerite’ or any such conceit.

His oeuvre, right up to the final works, reflected the issues and culture of his times. He never ceased painting traditional artistic subjects: scenes from history, from the Bible, mythology, the Classical world and the contemporary world – with political comment sometimes included.

He traveled widely and frequently and, when doing so, worked furiously in his sketchbooks.

Rain, Steam and Speed

So just what was so special about Turner that he is widely regarded as the greatest English painter ever?

Late Turner: Setting Painting Free is the autumn/winter blockbuster at the Tate Britain – and a blockbuster it most certainly is.

Hot on the heels of the Tate Modern’s look at late works by Matisse – and opening just a few weeks before the National Gallery's exhibition of late Rembrandt – this is the first major show to bring together works exclusively from the last 16 years of Turner’s life.

While it’s a shame that it doesn’t include the iconic and deeply political The Fighting Temeraire (1838), which hangs in the National Gallery (is there a link between its absence here and the privatisation plans at that gallery?), there is more than enough to satisfy and to convey a rounded sense of this period of the artist’s career.

Besides, we do have Rain, Steam and Speed (1844), which os a wonderful piece of active composition, but which has also triggered a great deal of analysis about what sort of a statement it was and, most particularly, whether it was a comment on the negative nature of industrialisation.

The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons

There has been some carping that much of what is on display is already in the Tate’s own collection, so should see the exhibition price reduced, but there are also treats that are not seen often in this country – such as The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons (1834-35), which is owned by the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

That includes many figures in the foreground, one of whom, apparently in clerical garb, is speculated to be William Tyndale, the Protestant reformer and Bible translator, who was burned at the stake for heresy in 1536.

To have him witnessing the fire could well be one of Turner’s political statements.

But wherever the works are usually housed, this exhibition presents a wonderful opportunity to get a real sense of Turner's work if you haven’t done so before.

Mont Blanc and the Glacier des Bossons

Reading an interview in the Tate magazine with Mike Leigh, whose new, Cannes-lauded film, Mr Turner, is now on general release, it was fascinating to discover that he had initially viewed the artist, together with Constable, as a “chocolate box” painter.

I spent years thinking the same, and this exhibition offered me a first chance to really get a big dose of the works.

One of the particular joys here – and it’s a revelation too, if you’re not familiar with them – is the watercolours, which have a vibrancy of colour that is astonishing.

Mont Blanc and the Glacier des Bossons from above Chamonix; Evening 1836, for instance, is beautiful.

Indeed, colour is what dominates: colour and light and movement.

I had, prior to going into the exhibition itself, had a bit of a trot around the gallery’s core collection of British art – particularly that from Turner’s own period – in order to remind myself of the context.

One thing that struck me forcefully later, was that I could not recall seeing anything like the palette that Turner himself used – particularly the blues and golds.

Light and Colour (Goethe's Theory)

There is a radiance to his work that lights a room. Figure painting was not his forte, as the enigmatically-titled War. The Exile and the Rock Limpet (1842) illustrates perfectly, with it’s oddly tall and thin rendering of Napoleon.

Fortunately, in most cases he didn’t bother to do much more than suggest figures.

The companion piece to the Napoleon one, Peace - Burial at Sea (1842), depicts the burial of sea of painter Sir David Wilkie, who had died of typhoid while on board. A tribute to a colleague, it is one of the most powerful images on display.

The same series of experimental square canvases that includes Boney also features Light and Colour (Goethe's Theory) – The Morning After the Deluge – Moses Writing the Book of Genesis (1843), in which the figure is so lost in the swirl of light as to be almost indiscernible, so as with other canvases, what the viewer is mainly looking at is incandescent light.

But then, as the catalogue posits, this might not have been intended as the Moses of the Old Testament, but a reference to entomologist Moses Harris, who had penned the standard 18th-century chromatic theory, The Natural History of Colours.

These canvases are displayed in a single room with the walls painted a deep blue – a wonderful move that really accentuates the light that radiates from them.

The difficulty in dealing with Turner is illustrated clearly by some of the final canvases, which were almost certainly unfinished – he often only finished a work when it was just supposed to be being prepared for exhibition.

Norham Castle, Sunrise

Norham Castle, Sunrise (1845) is a perfect example of one of these (probably) unfinished works that, to our eyes – accustomed to Monet and to Abstract Expressionism – seems complete.

It’s easy to imagine that the man now revered around the world was always highly thought of, but that’s not quite the case.

In his later years, even his supporter, John Ruskin, thought he’d lost his marbles and, with them, the artistic plot.

And while Turner left vast amounts of his work to the nation, the nation didn’t seem entirely sure what to do about such a bequest.

The 20th century was well into its stride when the then director of the National Gallery, Kenneth Clarke, found 20 unrolled canvases, thick with grime, in a “small and remote vault,” which he thankfully decided to check before ordering someone to throw them away.

This exhibition is a glorious valediction, and one that, instead of looking to the past, looks – to our eyes – very much to what was then still some way in the future.

The Tate has also done a great job with the catalogue too but, as with the pictures shown here, no reproduction can do justice to these pictures; to the light, the colour and the movement.

You really do need to seem them in the ‘flesh’ to fully appreciate the magnificence – and revolutionary nature – of Turner’s late work.

It’s well worth the effort to visit.

• Turner: The late years, is at the Tate Britain until 25 January.

Turner Prize nominees offer no delights

Okay, m'kay?

A few weeks ago, with my new(ish) Tate membership card clutched firmly in hand, I was enjoying a wander around the Tate Britain, when I spotted the door for the galleries where this year’s four Turner Prize nominees are exhibiting.

Now in the past that would have had me scuttling away, but the past is a different country, and armed with the knowledge that I could enter without having to pay any extra, I decided to grasp the opportunity.

Pushing beyond the heavy door, I tried to shove my equally weighty reservations firmly to the back of my head and maintain as open a mind as possible.

First up was artist and composer James Richards, who uses ‘found images’ in his own black and white films. His entry here, Rosebud, includes, for instance, mutilated photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe and Man Ray that he found in a public library in Japan.

The methodical efforts of an anonymous individual or individuals to scratch out any signs of genitalia is an interesting reminder of how censorship is not just something done by the state.

Moving on, Tris Vonna-Michell’s audio-visual installation, Finding Chopin Dans l’Essex, is about the artist trying to make sense of his own background as a German, born and raised in Southend.

Meanwhile, in the exhibition’s one step away from lengthy video installations, Ciara Phillips has pasted an entire room with her splattery screen prints, together with frames that spell out a gigantic ‘OK’, to create Things Shared.

And it all finishes with Duncan Campbell’s 55-minute film If For Others, which casts an eye over how art is used and commoditised.

Umm.

Of the three lengthy films, Vonna-Michell’s is primarily a biographical/autobiographical documentary: there’s nothing remotely wrong with this – but is it ‘art’, other than an example of the art of documentary?

Richards’s piece, as mentioned, raises questions about censorship – but again, is it ‘art’ or a form of art film?

Phillips’s screen prints warmed the cockles of my old-fashioned heart – although that was rather more because I recognised them as being something that I could understand as ‘art’, but beyond that, they didn’t really have much else going for them.

The professional critics are hailing Campbell’s piece as the obvious winner among this quartet, but after being harangued by a female voice for several minutes on the subject of ‘parasitical art dealers’ and how It’s All The Fault Of The ‘Neo-Liberal Elite’, I chose to exit stage left, marking the first instance where I have found myself being irritated by someone actually objecting to neo-liberalism.

Censored Mapplethorpe

Campbell’s work may well be a very good polemical film essay – and there is nothing remotely wrong with that – but if that is what is for ‘art’ these days, then why isn’t the BBC’s fabulous three-part TV essay on concrete brutalism by Jonathon Meades in contention?

What is it that sees these video exhibits classed as ‘art’ and that not?

All of these video entries have a place – they all had more to offer than I expected – but is that place really in a gallery? And what, ultimately, do we mean by ‘art’?

The art establishment is, by and large, completely out of synch with the majority of the population.

Art has become divided into two worlds – and rarely do the twain meet.

In one, art has become about the concept – see above. You no longer need to able to even use any of what most people would consider the main skills associated with art: drawing, painting, sculpting, ceramics etc.

Throw some images together on film – the rougher-looking the better – and suggest that they convey some deeper, philosophical meaning.

Alternatively, do something similar with objects arranged in an apparently haphazard fashion.

Just to point out – I am not opposed to installation art per se: Anish Kapor’s Marsyas convinced me that there could be plenty of merit in such an approach.

But away from this sort of approach, most people want something less solipsistic – they do not want to look at a piece that takes hours to explain before you have a chance of ‘getting’ it (that’s why Marsyas worked: it didn’t need you to be told anything).

This is not to assert that people in general are unsophisticated when it comes to imagery or that they afraid of the ‘modern’ in general – the Matisse cut outs at the Tate Modern earlier this year was a blockbuster not just in name, but in terms of crowds too.

Art can – should? – “wash away from the soul the dust of everyday life”, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be infantile or unchallenging, as Picasso, who said that, illustrated.

And in a work such as Guernica, he also showed that he could use art for aims other than lifting the spirits.

But a large part of the key to Guernica’s power and success – just as with, say, Goya’s The Third of May 1808, is because they do not require lengthy examination before one can come to a basic understanding of them.

However, in an era when Tracey Emin can be named professor of drawing at the Royal Academy, as happened in 2011 – and that be hailed in some quarters – then we have come to a pretty pass.

As I’ve argued before, the likes of Emin, Damien Hirst and Ai Weiwei create an art that brings to mind the Emperor’s New Clothes, with gushing sycophants falling over themselves in order to show just how hip and avant garde they are.

In the case of Phillips, I feel that her Turner Prize nomination may be rather a sop to ‘traditional’ art, although some have suggested it’s because she runs an artists’ collective in Glasgow that operates in the community (perfectly laudable). It’s like the reserve of that Emperor’s New Clothes coin.

There may well be a place for the video exhibits that are currently on show in the Tate Britain’s Turner Prize nominees exhibition, as I hope I’ve illustrated in a fairly open-minded manner. But in a gallery, displayed as ‘art’, is not that place.