The Turner prize is looking old – and paradoxically, this is down to its obsession with youth.
The prize that did so much to make the Young British Artist movement famous in the 1990s has a rule that to be eligible you have to be under the age of 50. That rule is looking increasingly bizarre, self-destructive and inane. The YBA generation themselves are now too old to be shortlisted for the Turner – so sod off Gary Hume, Tacita Dean, and Jake and Dinos Chapman, you’ll never get another chance at the Turner. The Tate doesn’t need old-fogey art in its groovy youth prize – especially those senior British artists from Frank Auerbach to Phyllida Barlow.