The 2024 Turner Prize was awarded to Jasleen Kaur for her exhibition Alter Altar.  The 2024 Turnip Prize was awarded to Wonga Woman for her work Tax in Creases.

The Turner Prize is awarded to a visual artist born in or based in Great Britain in recognition of an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of his or her work.  The Turnip Prize celebrates bad art created with the least possible effort.

We would argue that out of the two, the Turnip Prize is now the more relevant award.  Give or take the small matter of £25,000 prize money awarded for the Turner Prize, if we had to win one award, we would prefer to win the Turnip Prize.

The Turnip Prize began in 1999, is run by the New Inn pub in the Somerset village of Wedmore, and offers as its principal prize a turnip mounted on a block of wood by a six-inch nail.

Why should it be any surprise that a more interesting debate surrounding contemporary British art exists in a country pub than in the elite, metropolitan galleries?  It is how it should be.  Postmodernism is meant to be born of scepticism and a suspicion of reason: that sounds like the basis of most pub conversations.  And if postmodernism is considered anti-authoritarian, blurring the distinction between high culture and popular culture, between art and everyday life, then, once again, where is this attitude better observed than in the pub?

© Os Bros

Os Bros salute the Turnip Prize.