PRIVATE VIEW: The Turner Prize The Tate Gallery, London SW1
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It's Turner Prize time again - the contemporary art world's annual bean feast and bust up. This year the attention is on Chris Ofili, who I have written about on this page in recent weeks. He looks a safe bet to be the first "proper" painter to take the prize since Howard Hodgkin in 1985.
What, though, of the other three artists on the short list - Tacita Dean, Sam Taylor-Wood and Cathy de Monchaux? De Monchaux makes elaborate, intricately constructed sculptures, frequently on a sexual theme. At first glance, her works look like machines made for doing something, but in reality they are complicatedly useless combinations of unlikely materials such as steel, velvet, and brass.
The other two are basically film makers, although Dean adds other objects into the equation (such as a revolving lamp and the sound of sea alongside a film of light fading on the ocean) while Taylor-Wood edits and cuts to show either a still image or a series of parallel films of the same staged scenario. Both are good storytellers, but I'm not sure that the work of either adds up to much more.
My money is on Ofili - judge for yourself at the Tate from Wednesday.
The Tate Gallery, Millbank, London SW1 (0171-887 8000) 28 Oct-10 Jan
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