Turner Prize Upcoming

The prize will be awarded on 5 December and there is already a marked shift in the style of art that is fancied by the glitterati who will take part in the selection process. Is this an acknowledgment of a change of direction first mooted by Saatchi last year? We are, of course, told that there is absolutely no connection. Some say that Gillian Carnegie, a flower painter from London, is the favourite. But she has also painted her own bottom from several angles quite recently. There are no Rachel Whiteread concrete clones, nor Damien Hirst pickles in the selection of the four finalists. The other finalists, Darren Almond, Jim Lambie and Simon Starling bear a closer relationship to recent Turner Prize obsessions, which may now prove to be their undoing.