The Turner prize is British contemporary arts most important annual event. It is open to any British artist under 50 who has had an outstanding exhibition in the previous 12 months. The four artists chosen to compete exhibit a series of works at London's Tate Gallery.

The `Elephant Dung Man' is Chris Ofili. His work combines 70s psychedelic colours, photographs (from the Bible to pornography), glitter, cartoon like characters and of course elephant dung. Ofili, says that he first picked up his unorthodox art material in Zimbabwe,``where there was a lot of it around''. He now picks it up from London Zoo. ``I go and get it when they produce it.. which is quite regular it is pretty straightforward, it comes out of the elephant's arse, it dries up and is ready to go.''

Curator's at the Tate Gallery have compared Ofili's painting to the visionary imagery of poet and artist William Blake. Critics who like Ofili's work say that he is challenging racial stereotypes -- of primitivism and black culture -- and introducing contemporary political issues into his work.

The elephant dung apparently is ``an ironic reference to Africa,'' where Ofili's family originally comes from. One of his paintings at the exhibition, `No Woman, No Cry', is a tribute to the parents of Stephen Lawrence, the black teenager murdered in a racist attack. It shows a woman in profile weeping. In each tear is a tiny portrait of Stephen Lawrence.

The titles, from the Bob Marley song are picked out in coloured pins on dung at the paintings feet. `The adoration ofCaptain Shit and the Legend of the Black Stars,' a comical figure inspired by the Marvel comics is surrounded by black stars with the eyes of well known black figures from sport and art.

Critics are keen to emphasise that Ofili is only the second `painter' to receive this prize since 1985. The elephant dung is not a factor, they say. Said Guardian art critic Adrian Searle, ``Ofili's paintings are often humorous and always visually complex, entertaining and arresting. His work has a more serious purpose than to shock.''

Traditionalists however say that gimmickry and shock tactics have once again triumphed at the Tate.

Brian Sewell, art critic for the Evening Standard, who once described an exhibition of young British artists as objects for a ``Selfridges window display'' said, ``I am sick of shit masquerading as art.''

In recent years the prize has tended to short-list artists who are clubbed under Young British Artists (YBA): people whose work challenges conventional notions of art. And who,it can be argued, turn everyday experiences and objects into `art' simply by exhibiting them in art galleries. The best known of these is perhaps Damien Hirst, the `Pickled Sheep Man', whose sliced sheep and flies eating a cows carcass caused a huge outcry just three years ago.

However, Hirst and his ilk are now just par for the course. An exhibition last year at the Royal Academy, the bastion of traditionalism, brought together all the best known members of club YBA. Appropriately titled `Sensation', it underlined that despite the criticism, and the bio-degradable nature of many of the exhibits, YBA had arrived.