ON THE day that Jeremy Deller set up his Turner Prize display, he told me: “I was never any good at art, not even at school.”

But now the artist, who is prepared to admit that he is not “technically capable”, has won the the contemporary art world’s leading award. No doubt this success will confirm the suspicions of those who traditionally declare the Turner Prize to be an aesthetic fiasco.

And all who lament lack of interest in traditional techniques will not be amused. The nearest Deller gets to anything as old-fashioned as marks on a canvas is a huge graffiti flow diagram which sprawls across one wall. This spidery network connects a selection of words to demonstrate how acid house can improbably be linked to the brass band.

It looks like a back-of-an-envelope scribble blown up to vast proportions. And that is precisely its point. For Deller the process of making is more engaging than the finished product.

The most frequently discussed piece is his eminently topical Memory Bucket, a video recording his recent visit to Texas and George Bush’s home town of Crawford. It’s about as polished as the average family’s holiday movie. But it suggests comparisons, for instance, between the siege of Waco and the Alamo.

“Only connect,” E. M. Forster famously declared. Deller, who has described his career as an accident which happened because of his “passionate fascination with the world as a whole”, tries to do exactly that. A small reference library stands at the centre of his display.

Art doesn’t stop in the gallery, Deller suggests, as he exuberantly though not particularly diligently sets off to explore any number of avenues. And perhaps this is why he was the best choice for a winner.

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