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| 'I don’t like art but I liked this': Hull gives mixed verdict on Turner prize | 'I don’t like art but I liked this': Hull gives mixed verdict on Turner prize |
| (about 1 month later) | |
| There can be few people in Hull who have seen the Turner prize show more times than David Thompson. A retired engineer and self-declared art ignoramus, he has visited the exhibition at the Ferens Gallery 12 times since it opened at the end of September – six times as a City of Culture volunteer and six off his own bat. “I don’t like art,” he kept saying. “But I really liked this.” | There can be few people in Hull who have seen the Turner prize show more times than David Thompson. A retired engineer and self-declared art ignoramus, he has visited the exhibition at the Ferens Gallery 12 times since it opened at the end of September – six times as a City of Culture volunteer and six off his own bat. “I don’t like art,” he kept saying. “But I really liked this.” |
| He tells his friends, when they tell him it was rubbish, that they need to go again. “There’s a lot in it. You might not get it at first, but after you’ve been a few times you start to understand. I saw a programme on TV about it the other day and there were these critics being quite sniffy about it. Now, I’m not an art expert, but I really liked this.” | He tells his friends, when they tell him it was rubbish, that they need to go again. “There’s a lot in it. You might not get it at first, but after you’ve been a few times you start to understand. I saw a programme on TV about it the other day and there were these critics being quite sniffy about it. Now, I’m not an art expert, but I really liked this.” |
| Thompson, 73, can talk at length about each artist on the shortlist, but his favourite is Andrea Büttner, particularly her work on beggars and the homeless, which he said “gets to the heart of the human soul, what it means to live”. But he thought most people who had visited the show – there have been 10,000 each week – probably wanted Hurvin Anderson to win. “He does proper paintings, you see.” | Thompson, 73, can talk at length about each artist on the shortlist, but his favourite is Andrea Büttner, particularly her work on beggars and the homeless, which he said “gets to the heart of the human soul, what it means to live”. But he thought most people who had visited the show – there have been 10,000 each week – probably wanted Hurvin Anderson to win. “He does proper paintings, you see.” |
| John La-Vigars, 65, was less enamoured. “I thought it was a bit tame. Not very controversial compared with other years. That’s what the Turner prize is all about, isn’t it? Summat daft, an unmade bed or whatever,” he said. | John La-Vigars, 65, was less enamoured. “I thought it was a bit tame. Not very controversial compared with other years. That’s what the Turner prize is all about, isn’t it? Summat daft, an unmade bed or whatever,” he said. |
| Alan Emmerson, a retired chemicals technician, welcomed the show coming to Hull. “It might get some of the London luvvies further north,” he mused, before politely dismissing the work as just “bits and bobs”. The Turner prize just wasn’t for him, he said. “I keep wondering what Turner would have thought.” Go to the Maritime Museum over the road and look at the Turner and the Whale exhibition instead, he suggested. | Alan Emmerson, a retired chemicals technician, welcomed the show coming to Hull. “It might get some of the London luvvies further north,” he mused, before politely dismissing the work as just “bits and bobs”. The Turner prize just wasn’t for him, he said. “I keep wondering what Turner would have thought.” Go to the Maritime Museum over the road and look at the Turner and the Whale exhibition instead, he suggested. |
| Outside the Ferrens, David Duncan was drumming up custom for his own art show, five minutes’ walk away on the best-named street in Hull: Land of Green Ginger. The 72-year-old had been to see the Turner show as soon as it opened. “It was thought-provoking,” he said diplomatically, “but not, shall we say, something that the ordinary person can appreciate. The majority of people like to see things they understand: landscapes and animals.” | Outside the Ferrens, David Duncan was drumming up custom for his own art show, five minutes’ walk away on the best-named street in Hull: Land of Green Ginger. The 72-year-old had been to see the Turner show as soon as it opened. “It was thought-provoking,” he said diplomatically, “but not, shall we say, something that the ordinary person can appreciate. The majority of people like to see things they understand: landscapes and animals.” |
| He was not at all keen on Lubaina Himid, whose richly decorated crockery from 2007 he dismissed as “basically painting teapots brown”. Duncan’s own oil paintings, of the cliffs at Staithes and Robin Hood’s Bay, were on sale at the Land of Green Ginger for just £100. | He was not at all keen on Lubaina Himid, whose richly decorated crockery from 2007 he dismissed as “basically painting teapots brown”. Duncan’s own oil paintings, of the cliffs at Staithes and Robin Hood’s Bay, were on sale at the Land of Green Ginger for just £100. |
| Danny Winter, 30, a bartender, thought the mixed reaction was to be expected. “Quite a lot of the other City of Culture stuff has been quite easy to digest for people who perhaps aren’t that into the art scene, but the Turner prize show is more challenging,” he said. | Danny Winter, 30, a bartender, thought the mixed reaction was to be expected. “Quite a lot of the other City of Culture stuff has been quite easy to digest for people who perhaps aren’t that into the art scene, but the Turner prize show is more challenging,” he said. |
| At the start of the year, Winter worked at the Humber Street Gallery, a new modern gallery that opened as part of the City of Culture celebrations. The opening show was Power in Woman, by Sarah Lucas – “loads of plaster casts of the bottom halves of women draped over kitchen appliances with cigarettes sticking out of their backsides”, he recalled. | At the start of the year, Winter worked at the Humber Street Gallery, a new modern gallery that opened as part of the City of Culture celebrations. The opening show was Power in Woman, by Sarah Lucas – “loads of plaster casts of the bottom halves of women draped over kitchen appliances with cigarettes sticking out of their backsides”, he recalled. |
| Not everyone liked that either, Winter said, “but at least people were engaging with it, having a conversation about it. If you get people talking about art who wouldn’t normally then you’ve won half the battle.” | Not everyone liked that either, Winter said, “but at least people were engaging with it, having a conversation about it. If you get people talking about art who wouldn’t normally then you’ve won half the battle.” |
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