No idea what doily-clad Ford Cortina means, but it’s fun!

Artist Jasleen Kaur with her installation of a car covered in a giant doilyArtist Jasleen Kaur with her installation of a car covered in a giant doily
Artist Jasleen Kaur with her installation of a car covered in a giant doily
Finally, some good news for the arts in Scotland. On the same day as the sector was promised a £34 million lifeline in the Budget, Glasgow-born Jasleen Kaur was announced as the winner of the 2024 Turner Prize. Her win was a breath of fresh air.

​Not everyone likes the Turner Prize, which to me is its whole appeal. I love art that gets the conservative traditionalists all hot-under-the-collar, grumbling “that’s not art, my three-year-old could do that”. “Yes”, I’m always tempted to say, “but your three-year-old didn’t do that because they wouldn’t have the originality of thought.”

Do I fully understand the meaning of Kaur’s doily-clad Ford Cortina? To be honest, no I don’t. But I like it, because it’s fun. And to me that’s the most important thing. Art doesn’t have to be po-faced.

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Back in 2017, Kaur produced a sculpture, Ideal Standards, which was exhibited as part of Hull City of Culture. It featured a toilet seat mounted on a rectangular block of carpet.

I don’t have a clue what that was meant to be about, but it was a bit of a laugh to have a lavvy on show in an art gallery. I reckon that probably angered quite a lot of old-school critics. Also, it probably confused quite a few people in Hull who had never seen a toilet indoors before.

One criticism of this type of art is that it’s pretentious and inaccessible. I think the exact opposite is true. A work like Tracey Emin’s My Bed is something we can all relate to. Some were apoplectic with rage when it was shortlisted for The Turner Prize. It reminded me of a former girlfriend’s actual bed. I texted her to congratulate her on her Turner nomination

More importantly, for the award to be won by a young woman from Scotland’s Sikh community is incredibly empowering for working class young people of colour in areas like the Southside of Glasgow. BBC Scotland interviewed teenagers in a school in Govanhill to ask them what they thought about Jasleen Kaur’s award. Many said that it would inspire them to take up art.

Anything that enables working-class kids to embrace such ambitions is wonderful news. Regardless of what you think of the art.

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