Letter: Request for help to enjoy Turner winners

Sir: I have a problem with art of the kind that has just won the Turner prize. It is not that I love it, nor indeed that I loathe it. Instead, it is that I look on these artefacts with the same sort of total indifference with which I look upon a dustbin outside my house. In short, I do not react, even with hostility, and I get nothing out of the time spent on the exercise.

It may be that my failure to react is itself a 'valid' reaction, or that the artist would tell me that it is the viewer's job and not his to create a reaction. But as a non-professional attender at art galleries, anxious to enjoy the works of the Turner winners as much as I enjoy those of Raphael, Modigliani, Bacon, Turner or Spencer, I do not find that helpful, and I should be grateful for any advice I can be offered to assist me in overcoming what seems to be my blind spot.

Yours faithfully,

IVOR LIGHTMAN

Cardiff

2 December