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1996 was the first year that a video artist, Douglas Gordon (1996), won the Turner Prize. Now film and photography are everywhere.
In the past five years alone, film or photography comprised at least part of the work of Tacita Dean (1998), Sam Taylor-Wood (1998), Tracey Emin (1999), Steve McQueen (1999), the Wilson twins (1999), Steven Pippin (1999), Wolfgang Tillmans (2000), Richard Billingham (2001), Isaac Julien (2001), Catherine Yass (2002) and Willie Doherty (2003).
According to Charles Thomson, critic of the Turner Prize and self-appointed spokesperson for 'the majority of British artists': 'The Tate is now more a gallery of photography than of art.'
Whether or not photography is art is part of the big debate that has dogged the Turner Prize since its inception: what is art? And is this it? Lots of critics are now thoroughly bored of the question and think it is beside the point. But many members of the public remain critical.
Michael Raedecker (2000) uses embroidery in his work. So did Tracey Emin (1999) on her tent, which had the names of Everyone I've Ever Slept With. Chris Ofili (1998) uses elephant dung in his collages. Tomoko Takahishi (2000), the installation artist, uses road signs, wheelbarrows, ladders, everything. Does hanging them from the ceiling make them art? Like Martin Creed (2001) and his light bulb? Does taking photos of your family, like Richard Billingham (2001) did, count as art?
For many the last straw may well be the 2003 winner, Grayson Perry, who is in fact, a potter.
Charles Thomson (quoted above) is co-founder of the Stuckists with Billy Childish (one-time boyfriend of Tracey Emin). The Stuckist manifesto declares, among other things, that 'artists who don't paint aren't artists', and that 'art that has to be in a gallery to be art isn't art'. The Stuckists have staged protests outside the Turner Prize exhibition.
In 1993 the erstwhile pop group, KLF, now called the K Foundation, staged an alternative Turner Prize, awarding Rachel Whiteread, the actual winner, with an additional £40,000 for being the 'worst' artist in Britain.
Even within the establishment there have been grumblings that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes. Ivan Massow was sacked from his position as Chairman of the Institute of Contemporary Arts for commenting that British 'concept' art was 'pretentious, self-indulgent, craftless tat'.
And in 2002, the government arts minister Kim Howells wrote on the Turner exhibition's public comments board, 'If this is the best that British artists can produce then British art is lost. It is cold, mechanical, conceptual bullshit.'
The media haven't always liked the Turner Prize either. In response to what one art critic called the 'annual tabloid knee-jerk' against the Turner Prize, one-time award judge Marina Vaizey has written: 'Is the knocking copy that the Turner attracts harmful? Those prizes that are not much criticised, or even scrutinised, are not perhaps taken all that seriously either. The non-reverential atmosphere does at least engage some of the audience to come and see what all the fuss is about. I do not think it is time to stop knocking the Turner. Knock all you want, but remember it is an open door. Come and see for yourself what is within.'
Graphics version (includes layout and images)