Vegetable People and Mental Illness: It's the Turner Prize 2012!

Spatacus Chetwynd's Work Has Divded Critics Ahead of the Turner Prize

Tonight's Turner Prize result is the toughest to call in recent memory, according to The Guardian's Adrian Serle. The bookmakers have Paul Noble as the favourite to take the prestigious art prize, though the critics remain firmly undecided.

Joining Noble on this year's shortlist is Elizabeth Price, Luke Fowler and Spartacus Chetwynd. It's been described as the strongest line-up in years, though the feedback postcards that hang in the Turner exhibition are decidedly negative. One reads, "I've been robbed," while another says, "If the Pre-Raphaelites are a reflection of their society what does this rubbish say about us?" Another disgruntled visitor said, "What a load of cr*p." The prize certainly has a tendency to provoke angry responses from art lovers and bemused purists. In 2002, the culture minister Kim Howell wrote on his postcard, "If this is the best British artists can produce then British art is lost. It is cold, mechanical, conceptual bullshit." Northumberland born Noble is nominated for his detailed pencil drawings based on the fictional metropolis Nobson Newtown. Fowler is the creator of a 93 minute film show four times a day in a cinema-style room. It tells the story of the psychiatrist RD Laing, who challenged mental illness orthodoxies of the 1960's and 1970's. Chetwynd has created a live performance featuring actors dressed like vegetables. 

Work by Luke Fowler [L] And A Drawing By Bookies Favourite Paul Noble [R]

This year's Turner Prize has certainly received its fair share of publicity and the result will be announced live on Channel 4 from 7.50pm. The winner of the £40,000 prize will be named by British actor Jude Law.