Mark Wallinger, Sleeper, 2004-5. Video still. Tate. Presented by Tate Members 2006

Kay Carson wonders which of the four Turner shortlisted artists will tie the knot with the prize.

A maze of cubes, a tiny house and a wandering bear… just some of the sights which greet you at the Turner Prize 2007 which, for the first time in its 23-year history, is being shown outside London – at Tate Liverpool.

Always controversial, this showcase – running until January 13, 2008, and acting as a curtain-raiser for the northern city’s Capital of Culture celebrations – displays the creations of the four shortlisted artists, Mark Wallinger, Mike Nelson, Nathan Coley and Zarina Bhimji.

And while the subject matter of the work this year is largely seen as political, I see another theme: something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. The question is, who’ll catch the bouquet – a £25,000 cash prize – at the end of the ceremony?

Something old is Mark Wallinger’s Sleeper (2004-5). A two-and-a-half-hour film of Wallinger dressed as a bear, roaming the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin is, surprisingly, his only submission to the exhibition, despite his being tipped as the bookies’ favourite to win, following his heavily-publicised anti-Iraq war installation, State Britain, at Tate Britain earlier this year.

Sleeper has been shown before, at the Venice Biennale in 2005, but this is its first time in the UK. The Russian bear, once the strong, invincible emblem of Berlin and now nothing more than a stylised marketing logo, is used to examine the city’s split personality.

Mike Nelson, Amnesiac Shrine, 2007. Courtesy of the artist, Matt's Gallery, London, and Galerie Franco Noero, Turin. Photo © Kay Carson 2007

Wallinger was inspired by the bear character in the TV adaptation of the fairytale The Singing Ringing Tree, made in East Berlin in the 1950s and consequently known by all of the TV-viewing children there.

It was shown in Britain but Wallinger discovered it was never broadcast in West Berlin. The artist has said he felt Germany’s divided past resembled twins separated at birth who were raised in two different ways.

There is something slightly moving about the juxtaposition of a forlorn little animal, a low-tech, furry costume and a Cold War throwback, seen through the ultra-slick, glass walls of Mies van der Rohe’s modernist museum.

The something new comes from Mike Nelson. His body of work on the Amnesiacs, comprising imaginary Gulf War veteran bikers, has taken a different slant from his previous chicken coop wire and alien pod structures of recent years.

Amnesiac Shrine (2007), or the more verbose Misplacement (a futurologial fable): mirrored cubes – inverted – with the reflection of an inner psyche as represented by a metaphorical landscape, looks initially like a mini-maze.

Nathan Coley, There Will Be No Miracles Here, 2006. Courtesy the artist, doggerfisher and Haunch of Venison, London. Photo © Kay Carson 2007

It is designed to disorientate, and does so with beautiful and breathtaking results. The work starts with two tiny, identical rooms so you don’t know which way is the exit or the entrance, or even if it really matters.

In the middle are four small cubes which do not have doors, but in each there is a peep-hole. Look inside… and into infinity. The cubes are an ingenious twist on Robert Morris’ minimalist, mirror-plate cubes, where everything was reflected externally.

In Nelson’s piece, everything is internalised; strings of lights over sand reflect on themselves to eternity. I could gaze upon this work forever and it would never fail to lift my spirits.

Nathan Coley’s illuminated text scaffold is something borrowed, or, at least, the phrase on it is borrowed. There Will Be No Miracles Here (2006) is inspired by an historical anecdote about the French village of Modseine, reputedly a hotbed of mysticism.

A 17th century king was so exasperated by the fuss that he had a sign erected, stating: 'There Will Be No Miracles Here, By Order of the King'. It sheds light, literally, upon Coley’s fascination with the power struggle between church and state.

Photograph © Kay Carson 2007

(Above) Nathan Coley, Hope and Glory, 2007, with Annihilated Confessions #1, #2 and #3 Black, 2007. Courtesy the artist, Doggerfisher and Haunch of Venison, London

Coley’s new work for the exhibition includes Hope and Glory (2007). Echoing the sentiment that an Englishman’s home is his castle, no matter how humble, it looks like a doll’s house, but is hollow inside.

The two untitled oak plinths on the floor, demarcating Coley’s gallery space, are there to amplify the entering of another realm by consciously having to cross the threshold. They could, however, end up being the most controversial piece of all, as they are not signposted and I, among others, stumbled over one of them.

Something blue: Zarina Bhimji’s exquisitely haunting photographs exude a calm melancholy, plus a helplessness like watching the sun go down on your favourite day, and being unable to stop it.

The only female artist in the quartet, Bhimji’s three-year research into the colonial history and migration patterns of East Africa, India and Zanzibar has resulted in a series of prints saturated with human emotions, despite there being no people in most of the pictures.

Zarina Bhimji, Illegal Sleep, 2007. Courtesy the artist and Haunch of Venison, London

Shadows and Disturbances (2007) shows a once-ornate window frame, resplendent in mother of pearl shutters, with a sharp, diagonal shadow looming across the scene as evening falls. The façade of the building has been torn off in places, revealing chipped paint and jagged wood panels. In Illegal Sleep, 16 rifles stand tacitly and terrifyingly, ready to fight and ready to kill.

So, who will win? Will Nelson and Wallinger, previous shortlisters, continue to be the bridesmaids? It’s anyone’s guess, but even though this year’s foursome aren’t big on shock factor (think Emin’s unmade bed or Hirst’s shark), one thing is guaranteed; the verdict, to be announced on December 3, will divide art-lovers everywhere.