There’s something more than a little totalitarian about the idea of a ‘culture minister’ , which makes it only too appropriate that Kim Howells, the man in London who holds that job is, in fact, a former communist. Still, he deserves at least one cheer for his remarks about the shortlist of ‘artworks’ in the running for Britain’s supposedly prestigious Turner prize. These were described in last week’s London Sunday Times as including “a ceiling of Perspex squares, a description of a pornographic film in pink letters and a giant black block.”
Howells’ comment: If this is the best that British artists can produce then British art is lost. It is cold, mechanical, conceptual bulls***.”
So it is.