Glasgow-born, Berlin-based Philipsz is best known for recording her own versions of pop and folk songs, which she has played in stairwells, supermarkets and under bridges. In one work, she sang through a PA system to unsuspecting shoppers at a branch of Tesco
Photograph: Taavetti Alin
What the judges said: 'Philipsz uses her own singing voice to create uniquely evocative sound installations that respond to the character of specific, often out-of-the-way spaces.'
Photograph: Borja Bernárdez/Susan Philipsz/Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York
What we said: 'To be caught unawares by a Philipsz installation is to stumble on an intimate experience: the almost affectless, deliberately unshowy way she uses her fragile, unaccompanied voice stops you in your tracks and makes you listen and look hard – which is part of the point.' (Charlotte Higgins, 2010)
Photograph: Eoghan McTigue/Tanya Bonakdar Ga/PA
De la Cruz's 'everyday paintings', which she has made since 1994, start off as monochrome abstracts built up in layers of oil paint on canvas, but are then smashed, ripped, squashed and crumpled into strange shapes. They are presented crammed into corners, propped against walls or squeezed into unsuitable places
Photograph: Angela de la Cruz/Lisson Gallery
What the judges said: 'De la Cruz uses the language of painting and sculpture to create striking works that evoke memory and desire through combining formal tension with a deeper emotional presence.'
Photograph: Andy Keats/Courtesy Camden Arts/PA
What we said: 'One could see much of De la Cruz's work as a response to all the talk about the death of painting that periodically grips the art world. Painting may be dead, but it won't lie down – except that De la Cruz's does, and worse.' (Adrian Searle, 2010)
Photograph: Angela de la Cruz/Lisson Gallery
Dalwood's 'history paintings' feature absent ghosts from Sharon Tate to the IRA's Grand Hotel bomber and David Kelley. Dalwood is now the 2/1 favourite to win the Turner prize; his work is 'easy on the eye', explained a William Hill spokesman helpfully
Photograph: Chloe Barter
What the judges said: '...the rich depth and varied range of his approach to making paintings [draws] upon art history as well as contemporary cultural and political events.'
Photograph: Dave Morgan/Gagosian Gallery/Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
What we said: 'Dalwood was nobody until he was taken up by Charles Saatchi and promoted as one of Saatchi's so-called New Neurotic Realists... Some people say painting is back. If this is what they mean by painting, I hope it goes away again soon.' (Jonathan Jones, 2000)
Photograph: FXP Photography/Gagosian Gallery/PA
The Otolith Group is made up of two London-based artists, Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun. Much of their film work is focused on Third World social movements and utopian experiments in Africa, Asia, and eastern Europe
Photograph: Houssam Mchaiemch/Courtesy of the Otolith Group
What the judges said: 'The Otolith Group work collaboratively across a range of disciplines, in particular the moving image, to investigate overlooked histories through archival and documentary material.'
Photograph: Matthew Booth/The Otolith Group//PA
What we said: 'The Otolith group's approach can be as playful as it is unflinchingly erudite.' (Skye Sherwin, 2009)
Photograph: The Otolith Group
