Porn star for Turner

You have to stand up close to read the words - but, once you do, you may want to take a hasty step back again.

The four-metre-by-six-metre artwork is emblazoned with hundreds of phrases describing the action of a porn film.

And - surprise, surprise - it is set to provide this year's Turner Prize with its traditional ration of shock.

London artist Fiona Banner's work is memorably entitled Arsewoman In Wonderland. Daubed in bold, pink, capital letters on a white background - rippled to resemble a carelessly applied flyposter - Banner's words are, purposely, difficult to read.

When one can discern a whole sentence, it is enough to make the most permissive artlovers choke on their canapes.

Evening Standard was given a sneak preview of the Turner Prize exhibition, which will show the four finalists' works from tomorrow until the winner is announced in a live television ceremony on 8 December.

At last year's prize-giving, Madonna's use of the word "motherf***er" reaped the headlines. This year, the naughty words are all up on Tate Britain's walls - why, though, is hard to understand.

Banner herself says of her pornographic "wordscapes": "I wanted to make some work about sex but I couldn't describe it. I was too close to it and I did not have the words that close to hand. I looked again at pornography as a way of investigating my own taboo ... I enjoyed it but found it hard to grasp; it was seductive yet sometimes repulsive."

Banner has three wordscapes in her Turner room as well as several bronze shapes, which turn out to be huge full stops.

Another Turner nominee, Keith Tyson, comes close in the shock stakes - but for a different reason. This Brightonbased artist actually includes paintings in his room. However, his preoccupation with scientific metaphors has also seen him create The Thinker (After Rodin) - a sinister black humming shape that seems to refer to a supercomputer.

Another contender for the £20,000 prize is Liam Gillick who, in comparison, hits you with the impact of a tranquilliser. His pleasant room is roofed with lines of coloured perspex which look rather like a disco floor.

The final contestant is Catherine Yass, who offers two disconcerting films. One, Descent, shows images from a camera strapped to a crane travelling down a tower at Canary Wharf. Yass has turned the image upside down, to create the sensation of falling head-first.

Once again we can be sure The Turner Prize will prompt the question: "But is it Art?"