Money for God's sake...

Oh look, I made some art. That’s it in the picture. It took me all of five minutes even with the photographic editing, but I'm sure that you'll agree it's worthy of the Turner Prize. Great isn’t it?

Yes, everything is now officially art according to this year’s Turner Prize. Of course the Prize has been drifting away from what most people consider art for years. But this year they have surpassed themselves and in the process of declaring everything is art, have completely wiped out the value of art. Yes, art is officially Turner Prize dead.

Opera singers, a trendy DIY showroom, a spooky pop-up research library and some old chairs with fur coats hanging from them, are all part of this year’s exhibition which showcases the latest nominees for this prestigious, world famous, art award. So what exactly are they throwing at us this time and telling us that we must see it as art?

1. An ironmogers.

This is the work of an architectural collective – Assemble - who are using the exhibition to launch their own range of for sale home improvement objects, from tiles to doorknobs and fireplaces. They are kind of like a posh B and Q and have some arty friends in high places obviously - interestingly when two of the collective were asked on the ten o’clock news if they were artists they couldn’t give an answer.

2. A bit of a sing-song.

All together now, Janice Kerbel has written an avant-garde, a capella, 24-minute opera, which is going to be performed at regular intervals by six singers hopefully to an enthralled audience. Okay, opera is art I suppose but this is the Turner Prize, not the Classical Music Awards. Would the Classical Music Awards give the award for best operatic performance to a painter? I doubt it, but then I doubt that they would listen to a range of ringing door bells and knockers either.

3. Watching television.

Do not adjust your set because even stranger is the Bonnie Camplin installation. She’s cobbled together a supernatural study centre, which is basically five TV sets showing interviews with people who claim to have had paranormal experiences with aliens and the like. There are also some books, a few leaflets and a photocopier so that the public can photocopy any interesting snippets about close encounters of the third kind and take them back to their Mother Ships.

4. Hanging your coat on the back of a chair.

The final work from Nicole Wermers comes the closest to recognisable art - at least the contemporary nonsense that is labelled art these days. Don’t be fooled though, it’s really ten dining chairs with fur coats hanging from their backs. I know you installation artists out there won’t agree but anyone could bloody do that. And yes, I know that they haven’t, and yes again I understand your argument that it’s all about the process. But everybody knows that’s just self-justifying nonsense.

The Turner Prize seems to have further lost the plot although some would say that it’s great how diverse contemporary art has become. Some would also call this show radically different. Some would claim that it’s great that art can now be made out of anything with anything by anyone, anywhere, anyhow – and indeed that is what one Turner Prize representative has said. But really that is a load of old… (insert your own word here).

Okay, I have to admit to feeling more comfortable with art as sculpture or painting. But I recognise that a lot of other things can also be art – photography, installation, performance. I can even admire the cons and conmen that become part of the art – Warhol, Hirst, Emin and that bloody Duchamp who kicked the whole travesty off. But sadly, it seems to me that art is there more for the artists, critics, dealers, and up their own arse intellectuals than for real people these days and as a consequence art has become ridiculed and lost to real people.

What a great job you’ve done Turner Prize. Now that everything is art, there is no art. You’ve killed it, you murdering bastards.