The thirst for Hirst

A cow and its calf, both sawn down the middle to reveal their greying vital organs; thoroughbred horses cut in half then stuck back together again, their parts mismatched; a video of an artist's insides, filmed with a medical camera; the Royal Family taking a spin round the Ascot racetrack; painted spots and spotty paintings; a self-portrait with a gleaming glass eye, and a haunting room full of cages and shadows.

Opening today, the 1995 Turner Prize exhibition at the Tate Gallery promises to be the most dramatic and varied to date. But promises is the word, as Damien Hirst's Mother and Child Divided, in which a bisected cow and calf are sealed, each section in its own vitrine, and dramatically set against the eye-rocking backdrop of the artist's "spot" paintings, won't be on view until next Monday. On its first outing, two years ago at the Venice Biennale, the cow piece leaked, polluting the Venice Lagoon with formaldehyde. Making a late entrance, however, adds to the dramatic effect. Hirst's installation is planned as a grand, even classical treat, full of museological pomp.

The Turner is an annual televisual nod towards contemporary British art, culminating in the award of pounds 20,000 to one of the four shortlisted artists on 28 November. Does the prize enhance the public's perception of current visual art in this country? Who needs it, and who will win? It's a chance for a bit of cultural grazing but not much more. The Turner can't sell artworks the way the Booker Prize shifts novels, nor will it have much long-term effect on the reputations of the nominees - Mona Hatoum, Damien Hirst, Callum Innes and Mark Wallinger. But it helps the Tate to keep up to speed with recent developments - and to reflect the internationally acknowledged buzz surrounding current British art - while Channel 4 and the rest of the media like it because, well, contests are sexy.

So will it be Damien Hirst, our most famous and exportable young artist? Last time he was on the shortlist, in 1992, Damien Hirst should have won. But rumour had it that the jury thought the prize might go to his head and spoil him. This time, he'll probably make it (everyone who's been shortlisted twice has won) though who should and who will win are seperate questions.

Or will it be the Palestinian-born Mona Hatoum, whose video installation of the camera's invasive journey through all her orifices is but the latest in a series of works which scrutinise her sense of the state of the world? Will it be Mark Wallinger, whose mastery lies in deconstructing our national characteristics? Or will it be abstract painter Callum Innes, the George Harrison of the combo, the quiet one?

Damien Hirst is the only current British artist everyone has heard of - the Hockney of the Nineties - he has entered the national consciousness, from the pop world (videos for Blur, the subject of a song by dreary old Dave Stewart) to newspaper cartoons. Pickled sharks and sheep are the talk of the bus queue, and the stuff of tabloid shocker-stories. But the question remains: is he any good? Hirst's flirtation with the media is as much a part of his creative activity as the objects and paintings he makes. His over-the-top artefacts are witty, ghoulish, spectacular, frightening, horrible, ugly-beautiful, immature and perfect for our times. Hirst is bound to endure, if only as a phenomenon of late-century stardom. He makes work about profound subjects - life, death, decay, God, love, the universe and everything. The work's claims to profundity shouldn't obscure the fact that it also entails a great deal of gamesmanship, wit and fun. But when Brian Eno hands over the cash, I for one won't complain if it's to the gore-spattered Golden Boy of new British art. The Turner, after all, is a media, rather than an art, event.