"Controversial" was trotted out in June when the judges picked an all-women shortlist - Christine Borland, Angela Bulloch, Cornelia Parker and Gillian Wearing - in a move seen by many to be "making up" for 1996 when no female artists made the shortlist.

That has been denied by Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate Gallery and chairman of the judges, who said the jury had no plans to create an all-women shortlist any more than it had planned an all-men one in 1996. He is backed up by the fact that sculptor Julian Opie declined his nomination this year.

But it is, of course, the artists and their works who more normally create a furore and this year is no exception. All four are conceptual artists, whose work is designed to provoke and the lack of any painters or sculptors has not gone down too well with much of the mainstream art world.

Philomena Davidson-Davies of the Royal Society of Sculptors is not a fan of artists who take an existing object and "plop it down to represent a notional idea."

Another of the usual "freak show"?

And David Lee, editor of Art Review, described the choice as "the usual freak show." He said that the judges' criteria seemed to be "the ability to shock rather than creating a a work of art in the conventional sense - something of quality. There is nothing original about taking an everyday object out of context."

One who would disagree with those remarks is Mr Serota. He describes the jurors' task as answering the simple questions "what were the exhibitions, which were the works of art and who were the artists whose work had the strongest and most enduring impact this year on this group of individuals, the jury."

He therefore admits candidly that the shortlist reflects the jurors' "own passions and enthusiasms" rather than being "a polite nod in every direction."

This arthouse-infighting may be unseemly but it helps generate public interest and boost ratings for Channel 4's coverage of the event. Thousands of people who would not give contemporary art a thought for 99.9% of the year are at least made aware that there is "something else out there."

No stranger to controversy

The Turner Prize was founded in 1984 by the Patrons Of The New Art - a group of contemporary art enthusiasts who wanted to bring their personal interests to a wider audience. The award was based on the Booker Prize and was initially worth £10,000.

There was no age restriction at first and the award was on the basis of having made the greatest contribution to contemporary art in Britain. The first winner, Malcolm Morley, produced the first stirring of controversy when he described the whole concept of a 'horse race' for art as "disgusting". That did not stop him attending the award ceremony and collecting his cheque.

One problem in the Turner's first years was its too-general parameters, which meant that the same old faces kept cropping up. By 1989 all the artists named on the 1984 shortlist had actually won. The principle of 'Buggins's turn' seemed to have taken over but hardly seemed appropriate for an art form meant to be inherently radical.

That problem coincided with the withdrawal of sponsors Drexel Burnham Lambert and the 1990 prize was suspended. The event was then taken over by Channel 4 television and the prize doubled to £20,000. More importantly, the new organisers decided that it should focus on young talent - the official limit is 50, but most of those shortlisted are considerably younger than that.

The fun seemed to begin in earnest with the 1992 victory of sculptor Grenville Davey. His advice on how to survive the media examination included "protective headgear, thick gloves, barrier cream, a length of rubber hose and definitely a sense of humour."

Rachel Whiteread - another furore

Rachel Whiteread's award the following year gave the popular media a field day. Works such as Ghost - a sculpture or installation of an "inside out" room - provoked howls of anguish from the tabloids. That was nothing, however, compared to the non-comprehension and "dead sheep" jokes which greeted Damien Hirst's win in 1995.

And the "it's just not art" brigade had their usual near-coronary last year when the Turner was won by video artist Douglas Gordon. Given the choice of Gillian Wearing we can expect more of the same in the aftermath of the judges decision.

The 1997 jurors

Nicholas Serota: director of the Tate Gallery and jury chairman.
Penelope Curtis: curator of the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds.
Lars Nittve: director of the Louisiana Museum, Humlebaek, Denmark.
Marina Vaizey: writer, art critic and lecturer.
Jack Wendler: representative of the Patrons Of New Art

Past Winners

1984: Malcolm Morley
1985: Howard Hodgkin
1986: Gilbert & George
1987: Richard Deacon
1988: Tony Cragg
1989: Richard Long
1990: No prize
1991: Anish Kapoor
1992: Grenville Davey
1993: Rachel Whiteread
1994: Antony Gormley
1995: Damien Hirst
1996: Douglas Gordon

 

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