The Turner Prize exhibition has gone on show in London provoking a predictable reaction of shock and controversy. Blow-up dolls engaging in a sex act, rotting flesh being devoured by maggots and vases depicting scenes of child abuse and death are among some of the images on display.
The competition of the four nominees usually creates controversy due to its content - but this year the exhibition carries a "health warning" saying visitors should not bring those under the age of 16.
The winner of the �22,000 prize money is announced on December 7.
Is "shock" art still shocking? Has the Turner Prize gone too far this time?
This debate is now closed. Read your comments below.
Your reaction:
Everything must have been done by now, porn, dead animals, picture of a child killer made with children's hand prints, pictures made from blood, semen, excrement. Apart from the fact that this "shocking" art is getting tedious these "artists" must be getting desperate trying to come up with something different.
Toby Josham, UK
Good art certainly has shock value - I'll be shocked with surprise when I see good art coming out of Britain at any time in the near future.
Edward Green, UK
I am a photographer, and so, can rightfully stake a claim to be in the image business. I think this is a matter of dimensionalism: because it's three dimensional it is interesting. If I served up the kind of shallow "shock value" images in photographic form I would be considered banal and shallow. Inflatable dolls in suggestive poses is no more shocking nor artistic than the kind of games many kids play with Barbie and Ken. This is pathetic usurpation of the categorisation of art.
Andy, England
Art is a form of communication via visual means, people say this is not art well can you please define at for me then? Because for the last four months I have studied The Chapmans and I think there work is brilliant. Many of you think art should still be oil on canvas, well what meaning does this send to people? Then you look at someone's work like The Chapman Brothers and KT has meaning, why would someone put female and male private areas onto children's heads? Maybe there trying to get something across. I for one think that the Turner Prize 2003 will be the best one yet and I intend to see it live. If you think that people don't like this can you tell me why there was a turn over of over two million at the Tate Britain this half term?
Nicholas Mackie, United Kingdom As a 54-year-old fine art student struggling to express real things in a sometimes unreal world, I find nothing in the works of the Turner Prize nominees that does not appear on the News or in regular Soap Operas. All these artists are asking us to do is to consider aspects of life with more attention than we would normally allow. Unless one visits and sees "in the flesh" then merely looking at sensationalised photos does not give a true vision of what is on offer.
Buff Lancaster-Thomas, England
What gets entered for the Turner Prize is work by the cleverest artists exhibiting today. After all it takes real skill to get people to part with money for the rubbish they produce. The Turner Prize is an artistic con-trick and would be considered as fraudulent in any other industry.
John R Smith, UK
The purpose of the Turner is what it has always been - to maintain the monetary value of piece previously bought by collectors. It's about money, not art.
Jon Livesey, USA
To me they've all lost the plot. I lost interest in art when this stuff started appearing. I'm surprised people pay for it...still, there's nothing so strange as folk!
Mags, UK
The Turner Prize doesn't reward artists, there is no artistic talent in what these people do. Art is Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, El Greco, Rembrandt, Holbein etc. Not one of these Turner Prize so called "artists" would be fit to clean the brushes of the old masters. The Turner Prize should be giving money to people who can actually paint or sculpt, the whole prize is an insult to our intelligence and that of real artists - surely there are still some out there.
Kathy Anderson, England
If I remember correctly, Manet told Monet that "paintings are for decorating walls." If the same held drew for sculptures (obviously not decorating walls; but rooms) then I can assure you that I wouldn't choose to decorate my house with this year's finalists. None of them match the carpets.
Ewan, UK
 |  The only shocking things are the terrible lack of talent  |
The only shocking things are the terrible lack of talent - and the fact that anyone takes these "artists" seriously. Are we really supposed to believe that the bronze figures painted in flesh tones were INTENDED to look like blow-up dolls? Nothing to do with a complete inability to produce realistic looking people, then?
Ray G, England It is not worth arguing about whether or not these works are Art. That is simply a moribund debate about definition. I doubt very much that they shock anyone, disgust maybe, but shock no. What can be said about the vast majority of these and similar works is that they are just whimsy and in 100 years time they will have long been consigned to the rubbish bin.
Kevin, UK
The only controversial entry would be one that involved some skill or hand-eye coordination. Art has clearly moved on from the manufacturing phase to the service industry phase of being all about marketing. Namely streetwise youngsters separating gullible middle aged millionaires from their money, without the attendant prison sentence that other methods might induce.
Roger, UK
I judge art by what I would hang on my living room walls. Paintings like Constable, Turner etc. This so-called "Modern Art" is utter rubbish. Gullible people being brainwashed into thinking that artist is trying to convey some deep feeling. The only thing that shocks me is the amount of money people are prepared to pay for this c***p!
Roger, UK
Art, for me, is an image that evokes an emotion. These entries do that, but the problem with them is that it is always the same emotion: disgust. We need a greater range than that.
Mike McCulloch, UK
One has to congratulate the success of these artists and their work, who are able to generate such anger and vitriol in a world of such apathy and complicity in an age of renewed imperialism and clampdown on civil liberties. Maybe we should all take a closer look at what the production, display and media interest in these art works says about our current cultural climate.
Michael M, UK
| If these pieces of art do disturb or at least draw people's attention, then they haven't been created in vain |
Art is not what it looks like but what it makes other people see. And what we see at this exhibition is our reality only reflected from the perspective of an artist which is always unusual in some way or another. So there's nothing to be shocked by here really, we live with this side by side but fail or refuse to notice these things. Art is meant to disturb and if these pieces of art do disturb or at least draw people's attention, then they haven't been created in vain.
Larissa, Russia The only thing shocking about 'shock art' is the level of its banality.
Rich, Exeter, England
Art has always shocked the society in which it is/was created (Manet, Van Gogh, Picasso etc. were all vilified by the public and often the critics too). The problem with the Turner Prize and present art in general is that since Duchamp stuck a urinal on the wall art has been all about context. Tracy Emin's soiled bed would, if it had been in her house, have been seen as an average student's sleeping arrangement. With art only being art when placed in a gallery the borders between genius and nonsense have been destroyed, hence the fame of Emin, Hurst et al.
Having said that, on my last visit to the Tate in Liverpool I found many thought provoking works. Unfortunately though, the Turner Prize always goes for the lowest common denominator and we end up with artists who try to appear shocking but don't because we live in a world that sees far more shocking images every night on TV.
Arkady, uk
Surely the appreciation of art is appreciating the creativity, skill and care that have gone into producing the piece. Many of the recent Turner nominations give the impression that no skill or care had gone into them and the only creativity is the excuses given as to why they classify as art. There are some good contemporary works out there, which have obviously taken a lot of skill, dedication and imagination to produce.
Steve, UK
Surely art is about artisans pushing their creative energy into something that contributes something positive to society through sensory aesthetics. I see none of that here except some jumped up pieces of work that shock people into reaction. I don't feel such a reaction contributes any long term benefit to me or the world around me.
Iain Mottram, UK
The purpose of art is to inspire emotion and debate - judging by the number of posts here I'd say it has succeeded.
Dan, UK
Oh how I wish that artists actually created beautiful sculptures or painted scenes of meadows and flowers but alas they don't, and you know why? Because people are prepared to go and pay good money for the tosh that people call art today, so don't blame the artists blame the art buyers.
Anon, UK
Why they call unpleasent images "art" is beyond me. Once again someone came up with a ridiculous idea and everybody followed, sad, very sad.
Richard, UK
| It's nothing more that a wasteful money-spinner |
If the Turner prize is art, does that mean the pen in my hand is art? The laser printer at the side of me is art? No it doesn't. The Turner prize is just an excuse for someone to collect a few inanimate objects, place them together, and call it art. It's nothing more that a wasteful money-spinner.
Andy, UK I suppose we have to understand what Art is 'about', if anything. So much of what we revere is actually about the display of wealth and power. Rich patrons showed the world exactly what their status and power meant by commissioning portraits, statues altar pieces etc. Nowadays, the role of the artist is to comment on society, to challenge smug preconceptions and to 'shock, perhaps. How else are we to get a response from a media obsessed and image saturated culture unless it is by provocation? Is it Art? Who cares? If it says something or makes a person think then it is achieving its purpose.
Carole, UK
Shocking? No, it's pretentious and purile.
Adam, UK
The thing that's most surprising to me is that people actually pay people to produce this garbage. If instead of using the lavatory (as I gather is normal for certain bodily functions) I were to perform on an unusually shaped piece of board would it be art? I think not. However, you have to admire the people who somehow manage to make money by producing this garbage - it certainly beats working for a living.
Dave Tankard, UK
I detect a lot of anger in these comments as well as from the public at large. I suspect this stems from a lack of the aesthetic in these works as well as the negative world view offered by the artists. A lot of contemporary art 'fails' the public because it fails to communicate adequately and is often ephemeral. Whilst this 'failure' is an appropriate comment on our throwaway society today it is never going to satisfy a public demand for art which is aesthetically pleasing, communicates without insulting the intelligence and which offers enduring levels of meaning.
Pat H., UK
| The only consistent talent among them is Grayson Perry |
I was quick to pass judgement like everyone else and then I stopped to think. What we are seeing here is only a sample of these people's work. I would suggest that anyone who wishes to have an informed opinion on the Turner prize should take the time out to surf the net and view some of the other work by these artists. I now believe that Grayson Perry should win. I still don't understand the fresh flowers woman and I don't see the point of the video screens. Jake and Dinos Chapman have done better work than their Turner exhibits. The only consistent talent among them is Grayson Perry.
Donna, UK The avant-garde should be just that. It may shock or merely stimulate alarm amongst the traditionalists and academics. What it must not be is derivative and trite as these works are. They do not shock and the sheer childishness of the inflatable dolls indulging in oral sex is quite fatuous. Most of the great artists of the past have produced, although not always exhibited, highly sexual works eg. Fuseli, Turner, Rodin or Picasso. Decaying flesh is nothing new, even in this context. Let us view this exhibition with the contempt it deserves and encourage those who really break new ground - or have the ideas finally run out?
Richard, France
Is "shock" art still shocking? No of course it isn't, because the instant that you try to make something shocking, it is just forced. All "shock" art is these days, is dull and merit less, destined only to be admired by the pretentious (but good for publicity) few.
Simon, UK
Shock art is still shocking. What it is not is art.
Ed Karten, UK
The elitist art world clique has deluded themselves nearly to the point of no return. They have made a joke of modern art.
Kyle, USA
| Art is meant to provoke a reaction |
Art is meant to provoke a reaction, that's the whole point. If you hate it, fine, it's still had an effect on you. Art is no longer making something that looks pretty - that's all been done before - it's about ideas, challenging convention, showing alternative sides of life that most people do not wish to recognise. All you detractors out there are just like modern-day Victorians, gasping when a lady is seen eating a banana in public and covering up table legs lest they be perceived as "obscene". I bet you all like Monet...
Liam, UK It's sad that the art world doesn't know the difference between "shock" and originality.
Josh, UK
The Chapmans have made a sex sculpture called 'Death', and a sex sculpture called 'Sex'? Give them a million! This is the most creatively brilliant idea ever! I assume they're both fourteen - just imagine the wonderful art they'll be creating when they're grown up.
Thomas Evans, UK
I'm sorry the Turner Prize 'artists' people had difficult times as children, but do we have to have the by-products - their silly, ugly work - rammed down our throats every autumn? I don't find it challenging, just so dreary.
Adrian A, London UK
IT IS ART...I don't care what you all think. ART is a form of expression and human effort to imitate, alter or counteract the work of nature. ART is the conscious production or arrangement of colours, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty. Although this may seem rubbish to many, I think these artists deserve a chance to express their ideas...
Tina, USA
| The most shocking and controversial part about it is that it is still around and what it now represents |
For this "prize", I would have to nominate George Bush, Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, for covering the globe with their "shocking and controversial" art. With awards such as these, it is no wonder Western culture is seen as evil - we give awards that would be deemed enormous in most countries, for making show of child sex and rotting flesh. I would guess this exhibition has lost any purpose once the most shocking and controversial part about it is that it is still around and what it now represents.
John, USA Presumably those who object to the Turner Prize would rather see it replaced with a tedious "best watercolour of a flower arrangement" competition? I like the Turner Prize because it winds up low-brow (no-brow?) tabloids like the Daily Mail, so they've got to be doing something right!
Rod Devonshire, UK
The problem with art today is the fact that there is no clear philosophy; no definition of what art is and very little effort by artists to enrich our cultural landscape. For the most part rebellion narcissism rage and perversion are the hallmarks of so called creativity in this historical epoch. Such undercurrents embedded in the human psyche are just that, and not art or creativity. Surely we can discern psychological dysfunction when it appears and treat it accordingly. Then let people of principle work towards adding something of enduring value to our sad world.
Derek Dey, U.S.A.
Not shocking but boring. If this were the Booker prize, it would be a parody of itself. As to whether it's "art"? Well, I apply the Lee test. Could I do it? Well, yes I could actually. Can't draw, can't paint but can certainly produce most of the nominations. So, the Lee test says, no it's not "art".
Lee, England
| There's enough different art around to find a gallery nearby which you like |
I find the measure of the artistic worth of anything is personal, and extraordinarily democratic: Do you like it? The only person in the equation who is forced into anything, is the artist, who as well as entertaining us and their peers, must somehow simultaneously a) eat, b) like what they are doing, and c) not go bonkers. There's enough different art around to find a gallery nearby which you like, or else there's the Cinema or TV or literature, all great arts. Why can't viewers criticize those who deserve it in our society, eg the many people who just take, instead of those who make exhibitions of new and creative work, about which we can spend our time looking and gossiping as we please.
Jon, UK Boooooooring! Same story as last year. Turner prize is dull dull dull. It is only as famous as it is due to the oxygen of publicity provided by the press. The "art" in question is nonsense, but gets away with it because "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" goes to see it to tut demonstratively after the press "outrage"
GMcD, Livingston
Put images of child abuse on a vase - you're an artist. Put them on your PC, you're a paedophile. I'm struggling to see the difference here...
Dave, UK
Welcome to the annual 'Emperor's New Clothes Syndrome' art contest. No contest, No Art, No surprises!!! Maybe if we all ignore it, it might go away.
Jan, UK
Well? It's seems to have got you all talking about the Turner prize, would this happen if the work exhibited was a bunch of watercolour landscapes? I don't think so!
Daniel Murray, UK
| In an increasingly violent and insensitive world, it seems ironic that prizes are being given for demonstrations of aggression |
In an increasingly violent and insensitive world, it seems ironic at best that prizes are being given in Britain for demonstrations of aggression and vulgarity. What next? Maybe some cow dung thrown in for the same price or a bit of wife battering live... as long as there is a name behind it. Is there no limit to human stupidity?
Diane McCollum, Spain It's no longer shocking because they're just trying to be shocking. It's no longer art because they're just trying to be shocking. It's no longer worth commenting on because...
Albert, UK
A more fitting question might be: Is "shock" art still art?
Jan, UK
I think shock art would be more interesting if the artists depicted images that I hadn't already seen on TV last week. Maybe the Turner prize should be a 'news' competition.
Albert, USA
No-one is forced to look at this work and, as earlier stated, the prize money is not state funded. Would such a fuss be made about a film the majority of people didn't appreciate? No, they just wouldn't bother going to see it/talking about it. I am by no means a fan of many of the styles of work in this exhibition, but would rather spend my time looking at art I do like than ranting on about the work I don't.
Elinore Mackay, UK
I'm a fan of modern and conceptual art - preferring it any day to an insipid still life - but there's is something pathetic, puerile and cheap about trying to shock for the sake of it. Why do the Chapman brothers think they are cutting edge - not only have I seen it all before (their earlier work - children with genitals on their faces - and Damien Hirst), but I've also seen worse on the shelves at the newsagents...
Wendy, UK
The Turner Prize may not be shocking but neither is it art, not by any stretch of the imagination! It is about time that the few 'arty' types who rave over this poor-quality work realised that the vast majority of the public see it for what it is - rubbish!
Ken Smith, England
| I am all for modern art don't get me wrong, but that is not art |
I was an art student myself a few years ago, I am all for modern art don't get me wrong, but that is not art. If someone wants to pay me for getting some high street objects and arranging them in a room I will... And I think none of them should win.
Jason, England I would ask the people who curse the Turner prize every year just one question: what examples of your own creativity have you exhibited or performed in the past year? If you don't like it, produce something better yourself.
Stuart Estell, England
This debate is the sole purpose of modern art. Modern art is here to provoke us to question society, morals, what is or isn't art, what is shocking. The list goes on. Whether you like it or loathe it modern art does exactly what it aims to do encourage debate. The Turner prize is there to grab the attention of the average Joe Bloggs down the street and introduce him to art and encourage him/her to question life.
Adrian, UK
Art is a language. The problem with Turner Prize art is that it is a secret language that only the artist understands. What is the point of trying to communicate in a secret language?
Hugh Payne, England
Anything is interesting. Everything is art. The Turner Prize makes imagination art. Imagine it, it's art. However I prefer looking at the tele.
K Montgomery, Ireland
Certain boys in my 6-year-old daughter's class have reached the age where saying "bum" and "fart" seems hilarious. Watch out for them in the Turner Prize in 15 years' time.
MikeB, UK
| It's been turned into a low-brow freak show by people who substitute cheap sensationalism for artistic ability |
The only real shock the Turner exhibition could produce, would be if somebody submitted an exhibit which demonstrated creative ability and intellectual depth. The Turner is no longer a display of art. It's been turned into a low-brow freak show by people who substitute cheap sensationalism for artistic ability.
C. Hunter, England This is gross, sickening depravity with no claim to art. Time to dump the Turner Prize, it is a sad reflection of the way society is failing itself.
Tim McMahon, Wales
What happened to art being objects pleasing to the senses?
D King, UK
Display images of child abuse on a computer, and you're a paedophile; show it on a vase, and you're an artist. Well, it just about sums up what a nonsense this country is becoming.
Robbie, UK
People outside of the art world just don't care about this, and if the media refused to get drawn into comments on how shocking it is and "Is it art?" it would die a well deserved death.
Stuart Sands, England
Call me stupid, but I fail to see how rotting flesh eaten by maggots is art. Because if it is, there's a heap of it laying around the world right now, just going to waste!
Susan, UK
Here we go again. "It's not real art." "A child of five could do that." "They're just looking for publicity."
Could the anti-Turner brigade please tell us what their nominations would be?
Tim, UK
It's not shock art anymore. Its just regurgitated trash with no new ideas. Maybe I should put a recycling bin in the Tate and win the Turner prize for originality!
Gabriel Asseily, UK
| Art is subjective - what is art to one person is horrendous rot to another |
Every single year this debate appears. Art is subjective - what is art to one person is horrendous rot to another. Nobody is forced to go and look at the Turner Prize exhibition, and the state does not fund the prize money, so I fail to understand why some people are offended. Personally, I've been to the Turner Prize exhibition occasionally, generally liked a couple of the entrants and usually hate the stuff that wins. That's art for you.
Katherine, UK With the exception of the blow-up dolls (which just strikes me as childish, playground humour) and the 'chid abuse vase', I think this year's entries have a lot more merit, and are a lot less shocking than previous years.
I particularly like Willie Doherty's entry.
Nicki, England
There is more art running through the sewage pipes of this country, than there is in this pathetic show.
Tom Franklin, UK
Why there is such a fuss about the representation of activities that happen in the universe out of our immediate scrutiny. As you read this, there is a cycle of life/ death/sex/love/birth/decay. All this faux shock is spitting feathers as people look at the world as if they are separate from the cosmos and instead of it.
Rob, UK
| Art serves to change the way we see the world, if that shocks some people then perhaps that's their problem |
Shock art really only aims to please the grand media who fist endorsed it. Judge for yourselves on how 'shocked' we are by seeing just how much media coverage this years show gets in comparison to earlier 'shock' art shows. Art serves to change the way we see the world, if that shocks some people then perhaps that's their problem. But I think that too many artists rely on shock value to add spice to their work, I imagine countless artists jumped on the impressionists bandwagon, there's no difference, it's all about a contemporary code, kudos and people trying to eke out a living.
Baz, UK There seems to be little fundamental difference between the tat on display this year and that last year. I suppose it's a laugh for critics and the art clique. We seem to have lost the ability to differentiate between things which are thought up in the pub as a being a bit of a laugh and art.
Christian Tiburtius, UK
It seems that art such as is being entered in the Turner Prize, is more about outright attention-seeking than art or social comment. More 'look at me, aren't I shocking' than 'look at the meaning behind this piece'. And personally, I find I can no longer be shocked. Art is just plain tired these days.
Jan, Scotland
I don't class this as art. To me these are just everyday objects thrown together and given a fancy name to give it a different meaning.
Dan, England
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