Mark Wallinger wins Turner Prize
Updated on 03 December 2007
Exclusive: Channel 4 News reveals the winner of the biggest prize in contemporary art live from Liverpool Tate.
This year's Turner Prize exhibition and award ceremony is being held in Liverpool - the first time to have left London in the prize's history.
The champagne flowed tonight as the movers and shakers of the art world took in the nominees' work. For a quick reminder watch this report from earlier this evening and read about the four nominated artists here.
Sir Nicholas Serota kicked off proceedings, and actor, director and artist Dennis Hopper presented the £25,000 award to bookies' favourite Mark Wallinger.
Wallinger, at the age of 48, was cutting it fine to be nominated - the age limit is now 50. And since it wasn't the first time he was nominated - he lost out to Damien Hirst 12 years ago, the artist was clearly pleased to have triumphed second time round.
Wallinger was nominated for his film Sleeper, 154 minutes of footage of the artist wandering around a deserted German gallery disguised as a bear, and also State Britain, a reconstruction of Brian Haw's anti-war protest in the Tate Modern, London.
The judges praised Wallinger's work for its "immediacy, visceral intensity and historic importance" combining "a bold political statement with art's ability to articulate fundamental human truths".
We spoke to Wallinger as he stepped off the podium.
