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Saturday 22 November 2008

Diary

Back to the Turner Prize. As one of this year’s judges, it’s been interesting to see how the shortlist — Zarina Bhimji, Nathan Coley, Mike Nelson, Mark Wallinger — and the show have been received. Essentially, the shortlist got the critical thumbs-up (it’s been deemed ‘political’, though that’s not why we chose the artists), but the exhibition has had mixed reviews. Personally, I think the show could have been staged over a whole floor at Tate Liverpool, rather than the measly half it was given; but I still think it’s strong. There’s a unifying theme, which is strange when you think that the artists work absolutely solo. That theme is space. Mark Wallinger’s much-reported bear wanders around a cold, high-end Berlin building, stuck in the middle of a Germany he can’t get out of. Mike Nelson makes the viewer move through claustrophobic corridors to peer through ragged holes at a never-ending vista of lights and sand. Nathan Coley has us walk over a threshold into an installation, a special space, that concerns itself with belief, absolution and architecture: staged in Liverpool, a divided, religious city. Zarina Bhimji’s photographs and films depict the trade routes across India and East Africa, the landscapes humming with absent people. It’s a quieter show than usual, lacking an easy-access human element, but spend time with it and it really starts winning you over.

I’m researching for a big feature on the music industry at the moment, so have been conducting interviews with record biz sorts. On Friday I talk to a brilliant statistician, who regales me with the kind of declining figures that would embarrass Northern Rock. Essentially, the problem is that under-25s refuse to pay for music. When I think of how we used to save our pocket money to buy precious, hard-to-find singles . . . Pop music has become as ubiquitous as the air we breath, and with as much monetary value.

On Sunday morning I’m to appear on a live BBC show, talking about Important News Questions. The taxi is coming at 6.15 a.m. My alarm goes, I lurch out of bed, grab my clothes and stumble to the bathroom to put them on. (I don’t want to wake my husband, who worked late last night.) Unfortunately, while struggling with my top, I knock a large picture with my elbow and it falls to the floor with a massive smash. My husband enters the bathroom. We exchange a few brief words. Communication is what keeps our relationship fresh. Then, I realise that what I’ve selected to wear reveals too much flesh, so I have to creep back into our room (ignoring the frankly unkind comments from the bed) and dig out something from the laundry basket. This turns out to be a Snoopy T-shirt — black, with contrasting highlights of smeared pasta on the shoulder. Just the thing to sport while discussing what the government should be doing with our failing prison service, I think, and hobble in a business-like fashion to the cab.

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