Declan McGonagle challenges Jonathan Jones’s view of the Turner prize-winning art collective
It was disappointing to read Jonathan Jones’s patronising pat on the head for the Array Collective after their Turner prize win (‘If only it actually served pints’: our critic on the pub that took the Turner prize, 1 December). Not the first time unconscious colonialism has been evident in metropolitan responses to things Northern Irish.
In effect, he was saying “good for you, but this is not good for art” – as if art is an antidote to life, when the real question is about what art can do in life. The Array Collective and their peers address this question. Their efforts to create a participatory art process should be judged against their intentions, and not simply as a reiteration of the signature art process so valued by the market and by some critics.
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