The public loves to love it. The critics love to hate it. Journalists accept it as a historical inevitability. The Archibald prize, the face that stops the nation.
Every year, I have the same WhatsApp chats with fellow arts writers: who we think will win, who we wish would win; snaps of the abominations, cry-laughing and face-melting emojis; haggling about whether this is in fact the Worst Year. Every year spotting the Archibald trends becomes, if not an obsession, at least a sport: the extended era of brown suits; the post-millennial surge of Big Heads; the recurring waves of old white men in chairs. The 94-year trend of men painting men.
