http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/turner-prize-2012
I am going to get to the point after a bit. I was disappointed by Paul Noble's drawings, I had been a fan, but hadnt seen any actual ones for a time, they are funny, but the style of obsessive sharp pencil wears thin.it's good to be imaginative and sort of political, as he is, but...
Luke Fowler made a documentary which was shown in a special room with special benches. I didn't feel like watching tv. And Elizabeth Price made another documentary for a dark room which was jazzy and sort of hard to bear, but quite affecting till I got bored and went to see Spartacus Chetwynd's spectacle, some props were lying there in the contemporary art messy crazy style, see Paul Mccarthy et al.
I think there is a fundamental problem with not art object art, that is paintings and sculptures, in art galleries. Now hold on, I am not going all fascist and reactionary, it doesnt really matter what is called art or not, just whether it's any good... but and this is a big BUT: it does matter that painting and sculpture, is made and shown and understood in its own terms. Painting, what I know about besides tv and books, is different from films and has amazing and brilliant qualities which are special and worth looking at. And painting needs competition and discussion and passion and like any medium needs real engagement to do well and meaningfully. It is important enough, look at all the great stuff that has been done, to deserve and need its own space and not just be seen as a means to an end, another way of making art.
Curators may not generally understand that, so it's just lumped in with the movies and installations and stuff, but you are not comparing like with like, and you might end up looking for content (what goes on wall texts) or narrative (tv and film) or something which it usually isn't very good at and will make you and the people who make it, forget its ingenious qualities and the will and luck and talent it takes to do it well.