In announcing their shortlist today, jury chairs Helen Legg and Alex Farquharson both used the word “enjoy”, as if the Turner were giving its pulpit a rest, and joining the public lust for life regained. Phillipson, best known for the Fourth Plinth, would seem an example of this; her forms are bubbled and wacky, her colours primary and bright, and her use of food – eggs, cherries, peaches – is a bevy of sensual fun. And it’s true that after two years that saw, at times, the criminalisation of touch, the 2022 shortlist is an array of tactility. 

But those joys are not child’s play. The subtler change, and it’s much for the better, is a smarter view of how politics works. The Prize last year was built on a misconception: that viewpoints are more incisive if they’re broadcast as loudly as possible. Its five collectives demanded a plethora of social and medical rights, and though their works were argumentatively sound, they left no air for the viewer’s mind to breathe – the opposite of inspiring, if you like.