Critical role of the Turner

THE TURNER PRIZE 2007

Tate Liverpool, until January 13

IT IS now 16 years since I first wrote about the Turner Prize. Sixteen years in which the face of the British art world has undergone a sea change. Nowhere is that change more evident than in the fact that this year the prize is being shown at Tate Liverpool, its first venue outside London in its 23-year history.

When I visited Liverpool's Albert Dock last week, my fellow culture vultures included several elderly ladies displaced from a coffee morning and a gaggle of schoolchildren - all of whom made intelligent comments which a decade ago might have struck many of us as extraordinary. Young and old were fearless in their questioning - of themselves, of each other and not least, having caught on to my profession, of me. But while I was tasked on interpretation and intention, the most obvious question here was how did we get in?

The first of the short-listed artists, Mike Nelson, has constructed a labyrinth of white walls, a series of corridors which after a few dead ends reveal themselves to be laid out on a symmetrical plan flanked by a pair of rooms in each of which sits a pile of sticks adorned with pieces of torn red plastic to give the effect of their being on fire. Nelson, who was short-listed for the prize back in 2001, takes as his theme the Gulf War - or to be more precise his invented group of bikers the Amnesiacs - a fictional brotherhood of US Gulf War veterans. Read the rubric and you quickly realise that you are standing in their shrine. Walking past the campfire we enter the maze and find that certain walls have been pierced with ragged holes. Peer inside any one and you find yourself gazing at what appears to be a moonlit desert landscape stretching into infinity and punctuated with the twinkling lights of a hundred campfires. Of course its all done with mirrors, fairy lights and a lot of sand. Less complex than Nelson's previous Turner entry, the piece is scarcely less cerebral, inviting us to contemplate an infinity of wars alongside our own inevitable mortality. It leaves the viewer hungry for more, but ultimately this show is really only a taster of the work for which the artist is nominated and as much is also clearly the case with Mark Wallinger's Sleeper.

One of the original 'Young British Artists', Wallinger, whose staircase was one of the most memorable works in the seminal 1997 'Sensation' show at the Royal Academy, was previously nominated for the prize in 1995. He has also represented Britain at the Venice Biennale and is eminently qualified to win. Indeed if the prize were awarded for an ongoing contribution to British art there would be no question. The piece by which we are to judge him here, though, features only Wallinger's performance in a bear costume over 10 nights in 2004, when he locked himself into the brightly lit foyer of Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie. Most obviously the bear is the historic symbol of Berlin and Wallinger intends his experiences of being observed by passers by to relate to the sense in which, during the Cold War all Berliners were subject to invasive day to day scrutiny. On a secondary level, the title also recalls the term used for a secret service infiltrator - a spy in a disguise which would allow him to blend into his surroundings.

Leaving Wallinger's bear, you almost stumble over the next exhibit. When I first saw it this summer in Edinburgh I praised Nathan Coley's Threshold for its ability to stop you in your tracks and force you to think about the act of entering the gallery and making a contract with the art within. It loses none of its impact here, even if the health and safety gurus have placed a ramp across half of it. It is unfortunate that his signature neon piece There Will Be No Miracles Here does not have the same power here that it exuded when installed at Mount Stuart. His obscured confessionals do hold their own, though, and the dolls house of Hope And Glory also retains its associative poignancy.

Finally we have Zarina Bhimji and again it would be impossible to form a judgment from what little there is here. Bhimji's work is rooted in the legacy of British African colonialism and with her origins in Uganda she is well-placed to comment. Here she shows five large, intriguingly titled cibachromes. Her always unpopulated subjects vary from a row of semi-automatic weapons, leaning against a house in ghastly readiness, to a ruined interior. Finally we watch a seven-minute film of the empty interior of a sisal factory accompanied by a soundtrack of ululating voices and what sounds like a battle. While the photographs carry some weight, Bhimji's work is principally research-based. Ultimately she relies too heavily upon the viewer and from where I was standing the general attitude seemed to be of bemusement.

As if to counter that feeling, as you leave the show you encounter a black cab placed in the show's interpretation area and inside it, where the passengers might sit, a large screen plays interviews with past fares including Nick Serota, Wallinger and other luminaries. It is the cabbie himself who asks the questions, in broad Scouse and this surely is as significant as the show's change of venue, ensuring that we are in no doubt that this is art for the people.

Coley would be my choice to win and not just because he's a Scot. But it's anyone's guess. And surely that's the whole point. For today we all have an opinion about contemporary art. That is the lasting legacy of the Turner Prize.v

The winner of the Turner Prize 2007 will be broadcast live on Channel 4 news at 7pm tomorrow. The prize will be presented by Dennis Hopper www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/exhibitions/turnerprize2007