ABSTRACT
In December 2015, the most prestigious of British art prizes, the Turner Prize, was awarded to the architecture collective Assemble, to the shock and dismay of the British art world. The Turner had earned a reputation as a provocateur in the 1990s, but those provoked were the conservative elements in the art world and in the British media. This time, the decision of the jury was a provocation directed unapologetically at the ‘progressive’ art world itself. This was a peculiar slap in the face, carried out with work which was not anti-art, critical of art, or, in fact, particularly concerned with art, at least not in the conventional sense. Rather, Assemble won the prize for their involvement in the urban renewal of Granby Four Streets, in Liverpool’s deprived Toxteth. Like many of their projects, it intertwined citizen participation with crafts, hobby arts, social enterprise, and self-build. The jury’s decision was also an unintended response of sorts to art critic Claire Bishop, who had succinctly argued (2012: 5) that despite endless discussions surrounding the social and political impact of socially focused and participatory artistic work, such work was first and foremost grounded in aesthetics. Assemble, as a collective active outside the world of art, destabilizes Bishop’s argument. Their work’s aesthetic features are secondary to the question of societal impact.
