Film-maker Steve McQueen last night took Britain's best-known art award, the Turner Prize, beating the provocative front-runner, Tracey Emin.
The 30-year-old artist, whose latest exhibition includes footage of a tape recorder drifting off beneath a balloon and a house collapsing, was the second favourite to take the £20,000 prize.
His success was announced at a dinner at the Tate Gallery in London.
McQueen, who now lives in Amsterdam and Berlin, and the other nominees were largely overshadowed in the countdown to the prize by the notoriety of Emin's work.
Her exhibit consisted of a stained, unmade bed surrounded by empty bottles and other detritus left after a week of being bedridden.
The prize jury praised McQueen for the "poetry and clarity of his vision, the range of his work, its emotional intensity and economy of means".
McQueen's three works in the Turner exhibition included his film, Prey, which focuses on a tape recorder playing the sound of tap dancing.
As the film progresses it becomes clear that the tape recorder is being dragged into the air beneath a balloon and eventually disappears.