The Turner prize is the cockroach of art

Waldemar Januszczak | Waldemar.tv | 7th October 2025

For some, art is a vehicle for protesting about social ills or proclaiming on identity issues. Not this writer. The target of his ire, not for the first time, is Britain’s bewildering Turner Prize. Like some other writers he wearies of “political” art that it favours. One work, “a mess”, turns out to be the work of an autistic artist. “Who is right, the “critic judging the evidence …or the Turner judges showing compassion? Are we really here to choose the best artist or to be morally improved by … right-on social politics?”