YOUR DAILY DISTRACTION:

Artist Mark Wallinger has won the prestigious and sometimes controversial Turner Prize for contemporary art.

The 48-year-old British installation artist - who was first nominated for the prize 12 years ago but lost to Damian Hirst - won for an oeuvre that included Sleeper, a video of him dressed in a bear suit and wandering around a deserted art gallery in Berlin.

Wallinger's work "demonstrates art's unique ability to engage with contemporary political issues" and managed to "communicate an unpalatable political truth," the judges said in their statement.

The annual prize, which carries a cash value of pound25,000 (about $55,000 Cdn), celebrates art by a British or British-based artist under the age of 50 and whom judges deem has given the best exhibition in the past year.

U.S. actor and visual artist Dennis Hopper hosted the Turner ceremony on Monday evening from the Tate Gallery in Liverpool, which is getting ready for its role as European Capital of Culture in 2008.

It is the first time the Turner gala has been held outside London in the art award's 23-year history.

Hopper, who has been a painter and contemporary art collector for decades, described the prize as "the most prestigious award in the arts world" when speaking to reporters earlier Monday.

Wallinger beat out three other nominees, each of whom receives pound5,000:

- Sculptor Nathan Coley.

- Ugandan-born photographer and videographer Zarina Bhimji.

- Installation artist Mike Nelson.

Politics and conflict appeared to be somewhat of a theme for this year's nominees, whose artworks ranged from State Britain, winning artist Wallinger's painstaking recreation of activist Brian Haw's anti-Iraq war protest in London's Parliament Square, to Bhimji's photos of life in Uganda.

An exhibit highlighting the work of this year's four finalists has been featured at the Tate Liverpool and continues until Jan. 13.

A retrospective of past Turner Prize winners is also being displayed at the Tate Britain in London until Jan. 6.

Past winners of the controversial prize, which some critics have blasted for simply recognizing outrageous artwork, include Hirst, Grayson Perry and Anish Kapoor.

With files from the Associated Press