Farrago of multiple choice

Days Like These is only the second Tate Triennial Exhibition of Contemporary British Art, so the reader may be forgiven for not being altogether familiar with the set-up or its purpose. It’s intended as a kind of alternative or extension to the Turner Prize, offering a representative cross-section of contemporary art practice in the British Isles. This particular show (which runs at Tate Britain until 26 May) features the work of 23 reasonably diverse artists, and reveals – and I quote the press release – ‘the breadth of thoughtfulness, humour, subtlety and complexity in contemporary British art’. Oh, that it did.

The artists seem to have been selected almost at random, provided they fit readily into what has become the new orthodoxy. Once more the octogenarian and Tate favourite Richard Hamilton is wheeled out to demonstrate his impeccable lineage from Duchamp, and thus his unquestioned status as godfather to the present generation of advance-guarders.