This discussion of the three finalists for the Turner Prize was originally published in October 2005. It appeared in the esteemed News Skim and an abridged version was published in the Quarterly Art Review journal, "Art".
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Hallo. I am Romain Leclerq and you join me as the world teeters over a vast, swathing sea of controversy. The art world is about to be turned on it's head, the eyebrows will arch like an Olympic polevaultist and that omnipresent question "what the fuck is that?" will be asked of the art world yet again. Yes, dear friends, for the Turner Prize has crept up behind us and is poised to pounce, like the voracious tiger of the African prairie, full of surprise, strange beauty and sharp pointy teeth.
The Turner is now down to three finalists, three works of art created by three human beings, all charging towards the prize like an out of control car powered by smugness and talent:
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1. "Le Dossier, La Douche Et La Petite Cadeau Pour La Grand Cadeau" (The folder, the shower and the little present for the big present)
by Alain Merlot
Firstly, I would like to present unto the world, my award-winning fellow Frenchman, Alain Merlot, that most gifted and enigmatic of the latest posse of Nouveau-Pastiche-Amaretto-Faux artists to emerge from the sun-drenched port of Marseilles.
Tortured soul, lost eyes and runny faeces, all wrapped up in a conundrum contained within a decoy, shelled into a corner by a joke and then patted on the head by a whimsy. Alain Merlot has truly asked the biggest of questions with this scintillating, provoking piece. Here, by the exact placement of the fez within the pram, Alain asks us, the sausage-eating and cravat-wearing public, 'Where do I come from?' But the question is twisted, returned and fired out twice as hard by the garish leopard skin print of the fez. And as we reel from this double blow, a third thought empties upon us like an enema from the heavens. "Where do I go from here that isn't a week last Tuesday?" And lest we forget, all decisions made are watched, hawk-like, by the rabbit, crouched like a water closet filled with dark matter, beneath this most fearsome of prams. And the answer to these dark, mirthful questions? It is nowhere and everywhere. Yes, a truly awesome stroke of genius by Merlot. A favourite, a mistress, a persona grata.
2. "Quack"
by Boris Odessa.
"The second piece, a flaming retort against everything you and I stand for, is by Boris Odessa, a ground breaking and wall shattering Left Wrong Flopsie artist from Tbilisi.
The harsh lines, the stark white, the glint of gold, the promise of pleasure mixed with pain, the time has emerged and it has been placed in a box in the corner and forgotten about. The callous laugh, the muted sigh, the wretched fervour of the defrocked priest. What more can one painting offer? The imagination shrinks at the possibilities offered by this piece by professional pie-eater Odessa. This piece reeks of the filth Odessa saw on the streets of Tbilisi as a small boy lost in a sea of men. Was it a past glory, or long forgotten shame that subconsciously guided Odessa's skilled hand across the flappy contours of the canvas? Who knows? Who cares? I for one do not. I just want to admire and weep.
3. "Granny's Seven Inch Long Wish List"
by Angus McLeod.
"The third piece has swung forth from obscurity like a ham thrown to an indifferent spaniel by the burly and manly brawn of Scotsman Angus McLeod.
Haunted? Hunted? Hounded? None of these fit, yet the mind is pulled towards their beguiling charms. This is the eternal war, of muscle squaring off against intelligence, on a table-tennis table of gloom and warmongering. Will the grizzly visage of Eddy Guerrero, former WWE World Cruiserweight Champion and Latino Heat Hero defeat the coldly Socialist visage of Karl Marx? What could be more perfect than the eternal and damning struggle between these two colossusi? These stalwart defenders of two completely different though eerily similar pillars of life? Look at the intensity of the struggle, the slight tilt and determination of Eddy as his eyes turn away from the icy stare of a long dead proto-communist. Does Eddy fear death? Fear life? Fear a life under the power of a Workingman's Union? McLeod brilliantly sums this feeling of heart-rending terror and mutual man love up with room to spare for tea and scones and a nice pot of gin. This, Gentleladies and Men is the past, the future and the present, rolled up into one, and if you are brave enough to look deeper, you might catch a glimpse into every man's soul. A wonderful moment of clarity, spoiled by the capricious saucer of inevitability. Tremendous.
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And those are the three musketeers of modern art, swashbuckling to the death with the Turner as their spoils. But that was then, this is now, tomorrow has been wearing a coat since Sunday and next week has leapt into my mother's bed and taken all the sheets. I have been Romain Leclerq, you have been amazed, our minds have been opened and Art has filled them like cannons firing wafers into the moon. Good day.
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