Turner winner Mark Leckey attacks 'shock art'

Ben Hoyle, Arts Reporter

The Young British Artists (YBAs) who drove the contemporary boom were a bad thing for British art, the new Turner Prize winner said last night.
Mark Leckey, 44, was presented with the £25,000 prize by the singer and writer Nick Cave at a ceremony at Tate Britain last night. From the podium he criticised the effect that the YBAs have had on art in Britain.
“I kind of hate the relationship the press in Britain has towards art,” he said. “I hate the way it’s all Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin and Banksy. They expect spectacle and shock. Art is not like that. The art world I know is not like that; it’s a whole other world.”
He was asked whether the impact of the YBAs had done art a disservice. “Ultimately it has,” he said.
Leckey added that he welcomed the end of the boom. “A lot of bad artists have made a lot of money,” he said.
The Birkenhead-born artist, based in Fitzrovia, Central London, was nominated for two solo exhibitions in France and Germany that combined sculpture, film, sound and performance. Among Leckey’s more memorable works was the video Felix gets Broadcasted, starring the silent-era animated character Felix the Cat.
The jury, chaired by Stephen Deuchar, the director of Tate Britain, commended the “intelligent, energetic and seductive nature of the work”.
Leckey said: “You don’t need to be critically aware to get what I’m saying.”