This time, it was neither a pottery-making transvestite nor a picked shark-and already journalists were bemoaning one of the most boring Turner Prize shortlists ever. Yet it's precisely this dearth of obvious shock tactics that makes the works of the four nominees-Runa Islam, Mark Leckey, Goshka Macuga, and Cathy Wilkes-so interesting. In the end, it came as no surprise that it was Leckey who won this most important British award for contemporary art. It seems the 1964-born artist was this year's favorite among more than just the bookies. Singer Nick Cave was asked to present the 25,000-pound prize, awarded in the past by stars like Madonna and Yoko Ono. An apt choice, as Leckey, whose work is part of the Deutsche Bank Collection, is himself a musician who plays in his own band called donAteller.

Since the 1990s, Leckey's videos and installations have been investigating pop cultural phenomena. His film essay Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore (1999), which brought his final breakthrough, is a brilliantly edited homage to the English club scene of the 1980s. His work for the exhibition of nominees at Tate Britain explores questions concerning the perception and effects of media imagery, using examples ranging from Hitchcock to animated figures like Homer Simpson and Felix the Cat. In 2005, the artist was introduced by the Portikus in Frankfurt in a show supported by the Deutsche Bank Foundation. Since this time, he has taught film at the Städelschule there. In 2007 Leckey received the 75,000-Euro Central Kunstpreis, which also includes a one-person exhibition at the Kunstverein in Cologne.

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