Scrap the Turner, says Brian Sewell

The winner of this year's Turner Prize, the yardstick of all that is hip in contemporary art, will be announced tonight. However, a number of London art critics, among them Brian Sewell (pictured), are demanding that the award be scrapped because this year's shortlist is of such dire quality.

Speaking to the Independent on Sunday, Sewell said: "The prize is exhausted, so why keep it? It's a bit like British Leyland – you have to let it go when it doesn't work any more."

Sewell, art critic for the London Evening Standard's and a regular broadcaster, attributes the £25,000 prize's loss of relevance to Nicholas Serota, the director of Tate Modern, who usually sits on the judging panel. "He seems determined to find the new cutting edge, so judge and jury are chosen on the basis of the certainty that they will agree with who he thinks should be considered. Many of them don't see the exhibitions for which the artists have been nominated."

Fellow critic David Lee, editor of The Jackdaw magazine, whose mission statement includes the ambition to be “by and large pretty nasty and critical”, also believes the Turner should go. "I wasn't that impressed with the shortlist. It's becoming an embarrassment. I'm just tired of the mediocrity that's presented to us as though it's the acme of accomplishment.

The Turner was first awarded in 1984 and has been won by Damien Hirst and Mark Wallinger among others. Lee claimed this was the first year he hadn’t bothered to see the shortlisted artists. “In any generation there are only a handful of artists that are any good," he said.

Last word goes to Matthew Collings, the broadcaster who presents Channel 4's coverage of the Turner Prize. "It's always pretty ridiculous,” he said. “The line-up this year is no more idiotic than usual." Which will come as little comfort to this year’s shortlisted artists - Runa Islam, Cathy Wilkes, Goshka Macuga and Mark Leckey – as they wait to hear their fate. Watch this space.