Great to see the Turner Prize is on Brexiteer Michael Gove’s radar. It proves how important the arts must be to him, even though he was almost single handily responsible for the near scrapping of Art History courses from the A Level syllabus!
It is also of interest that the former Education Secretary can’t spell Helen Marten the 2016 Turner Prize winner’s name. I guess basic research at Lady Margaret College, Oxford wasn’t required! Or maybe he’s just competing with President-elect Donald Trump for the most idiotic Tweet!
Gove has attacked the Turner Prize for celebrating what he claims is the “tragic emptiness of now”, and labelled the prestigious arts award as “modish crap”. in a series of tweets, the former Education Secretary criticised the award and accused it of celebrating “ugliness, nihilism and narcissism”.
Here are the Tweets
Michael Gove @michaelgove Dec 5
Michael Gove Retweeted BBC News (UK) Why? #TurnerPrizehasnothingtodowithJMWTurnersgenius
Michael Gove added,
Michael Gove @michaelgove Dec 5
#Turnerprize2016 – congratulations to Helen Martin but #honestly is this = to Turner, Ruskin, even Holman Hunt – of course not #modishcrap
And here’s what people had to say about it!
WALDEMAR JANUSZCZAK @JANUSZCZAK 9h9 hours ago
Phew. The fact that Michael Gove hates the Turner Prize is cast-iron, unarguable, irrefutable proof that it’s a good thing.
Charlotte HigginsVerified account @chiggi Dec 6
Little piece by me on why Michael Gove’s Turner prize tweets make him look very very silly indeed https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/dec/06/michael-gove-anti-turner-prize-tweets-helen-marten …
25 replies92 retweets154 likes
Rachel Armstrong @livingarchitect Dec 6
Michael Gove says the Turner Prize is ‘celebrating ugliness’ … uh huh … government tells us what ugly is now …
Apollo Magazine @Apollo_magazine Dec 6
Michael Gove’s tirade against the Turner Prize http://buff.ly/2gghLua #modishcrap
ArtReview @ArtReview_ Dec 6
Helen Marten wins Turner Prize, MP Michael Gove
calls her work ‘crap’
3 replies5 retweets4 likes