Everyone's a winner

Today, like any other day in the twenty-first century, artists will emerge from dusty, unassuming alleys with a self-conscious sigh as they wonder if anyone will ever appreciate their genius. Others will swagger confidently through the halls of their art school, deep in thought or conversation about meanings of art and life, and in the old chests in the corners of their minds the dream of recognition pushes at the heavy lids. A select few will take a turn in a grandiose gallery with a little more mature confidence as they know that there, on that huge wall for everyone to see, is their work.

In the past wealthy patrons had the most sway over who or what was worthy of the utmost praise. Looking at the Titians and Monets and Rembrandts that we have today, their decisions were not unwise, and we all feel very intelligent and blessed with intuitive understanding when we see a painting on a wall or a sculpture on a pedestal and are able to say, “Oh, do look here dear, it’s a Vermeer. It caught my eye from across the room” (I confess that I fall into this group).  In the storage rooms of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery, there are enough works of art to fill the gallery proper many more times over. So, how will we decide which works of today will be exhibited above ground, and of which will be said, “It’s a what?”

BBC 2’s School of Saatchi propounds my theory of how the revered come to be revered: the winner, Eugenie Scrase, wowed the judges with a ‘found object’. Admittedly it was striking and shouted at you from across the room, but it was not so much art as a media stunt. And it seems to be, by and large, the media who decides which category each artist drops into.
Art competitions are less affected by this, however. They exist in their multitudes, acting as financial incentives the individual to explore and exploit artistic talent.

After speaking to Peter Monkman, the 2009 winner of the prestigious BP Portrait Award, I’m beginning to think that my assumption that all artists want to join the museums of the masters is itself commercial, or anti-aesthetical. Art is an expression of thought, marks on paper become the intangible and bizarre ideas that shape our lives. To suggest that the aim of all artists is to achieve recognition as he plays in the pots of gold at the elusive end of the rainbow is perhaps a little naïve on my part.

For Monkman, an art teacher who had been entering the competition since 1996 before winning last year, the greatest reward of competitions is the external acknowledgement of his work’s brilliance, itself “an incentive to keep going”. Without showing off to those outside your family it is hard to “[objectify] things. Competitions help you to move on” from a piece you might be lingering over unnecessarily.

Winning the award has not lessened Monkman’s desire to develop his work. Despite being a “fairly well established artist previously, winning has opened up [his] work to different strata of buyers, and there is more pressure” as a result. In fear of becoming “typecast” as a portraitist, he has “played around with other ideas and media”, such as the video art he created for the Venice Biennale. Far from nestling into the comfy, cosy corner of a style familiar to him, Monkman has reacted to his success by keeping up with, even ahead of, forms of expression.

Richard Wright, winner of the 2009 Turner Prize, expressed a slightly different view in an interview with The Guardian. “It’s a double-edged thing, I feel very happy… but also a strange sadness as well”, he said with a shrug of the shoulders, as if, on attaining the pinnacle of recognition, all dreams slid slowly down the side.

In spite of the potential financial gain of artistic competitions, what they stand for is something greater: the fulfilment of potential in both the artist and his style of choice. Undoubtedly Monkman and Wright are exceptionally talented and their work will outlive both them and us. We can only hope that long-standing competitions such as these will continue to highlight true excellence, allowing talent to emerge in force rather than be submerged by aesthetically unappealing media whims.

 From Palatinate, January 2010