Empty space and a light win artist the Turner Prize

Minimalist artist Martin Creed - renowned for exhibiting a lump of Blu-Tack and a screwed up ball of paper - tonight won the British art world’s top award, the Turner Prize.

The 33-year-old, known for the humorous touches to his art, picked up his £20,000 prize from pop superstar Madonna at a ceremony in London.

His win again underlines the ability of the judges - led by Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota - to make the award a talking point.

The award is regularly derided for focusing on avant garde art, rather than more conventional forms. Critics usually point to the absence of painters and not one was shortlisted among the four nominees this year.

For his display at this year’s Turner exhibition at Tate Britain, Wakefield-born Creed has shown nothing but an empty gallery space with the lights switching on and off every five seconds.

Critics point out that the work draws on classic inspirations such as Yves Klein’s The Void from 1958, which was an empty, white gallery.

Creed, however, believes his work fills the gallery space, with both light and darkness.

The artist, who lives in Italy, joins leading figures such as Damien Hirst, Antony Gormley, Chris Ofili and Rachel Whiteread as a Turner winner.

Creed’s body of work - which he helpfully numbers - has also included a number of neon signs. And he is also a musician with the band owada.

His jocular approach to making the mundane into art is demonstrated in the video which accompanies this year’s Turner exhibition.

In one scene, he is seen ripping a piece from a roll of masking tape and sticking it on the wall as one of his works. He then comically asks an assistant to measure how high off the ground it is before deciding it should be placed a little lower.

The prize jury praised the ‘‘deftness and breadth’’ of his recent work, highlighting his neon pieces Work 203: Everything Is Going To Be Alright and Work 232: The Whole World + The Work = The Whole World.

They were also impressed by his contribution to the Turner prize exhibition - praising its ‘‘strength, rigour, wit and sensitivity to the site’’ - and his ‘‘audacity’’ in presenting just a single work.

The jury called his artworks ‘‘engaging, wide-ranging and fresh’’.

Bookies favourite to take the prize was installation artist Mike Nelson who created a labyrinth of deserted rooms filled with assorted debris for the exhibition.

Also nominated were photographer Richard Billingham, whose best known work features his parents at home and film-maker Isaac Julien for works which include the opulent Vagabondia.