“IF YOU hang around the art world for long enough, you’ll get nominated,” says Dinos Chapman, the one-time Turner Prize nominee, airily. Yes, it’s that time of year again. The Turner Prize shortlist has been announced, and a further four artists will vie for the £25,000 prize and, often, more lucrative long-term investment potential.

But this year there is a strong feeling among artists, gallery owners, dealers and pundits that the Turner may be reaching the end of its natural life. The internationally acclaimed artist and Tate trustee Julian Opie famously declined his nomination in 1997. He remains frank with his reservations: “The whole premise of the Turner Prize is very 1980s and unpleasant,” he says. “Tate Britain should be focusing instead on staging interesting shows of younger artists. But the Tate says: ‘Just look at the press coverage.’

“OK, but in life you can take all your clothes off on Oxford Street and, sure, you’ll get a lot of attention, but there are other ways and means, even if the results are not as immediate.”

Still, the Turner Prize has been well-regarded and provocative, with a roll-call that includes Howard Hodgkin, Richard Long, Anish Kapoor, Tony Cragg, Richard Deacon, Rachel Whiteread and Damien Hirst. Not only has it been a model for similar awards around the globe, but it can catapult emergent artists to stardom. Richard Deacon, the leading sculptor and winner in 1987, affirms the impact of the prize on his career, but admits that “it no longer has the resonance it once did”, a point of view expressed by many in our survey.

Is the whole idea of a “race” and “winner” detrimental, some wonder. Specifically, criticism is levelled at the existence of the shortlist itself, which creates an environment in which all but one of the artists are seen as losers.

Julian Stallabrass, a writer and lecturer at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, explains: “The best thing the Tate could do would be to ask itself seriously what effect these prizes have on the production and reception of art.”

But what about the artists themselves? Richard Wentworth describes the impact that this kind of competition has on a career: “I do think it is an invitation to go to an emotional gym and I’m sure it’s not recorded how many strain injuries it must generate.”

We asked representatives from the arts community what they would put on a memo to Mr Turner Prize, Nicholas Serota, the director of the Tate, in the run-up to the shortlist announcement.

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Nicholas Logsdail, director of Lisson Gallery, W1

My nominations would be from my stable: Ceal Floyer, Jason Martin, Charles Sandison. I would also revisit artists who deserve another bash: Jane and Louise Wilson are prime candidates. Angela de la Cruz would be refreshing.

Paul Noble, artist

I’d nominate Gustav Metzger. I don’t think competitions are what art is about, but of course there are positive aspects to them as well. I don’t feel they are particularly helpful for an artist, but obviously for the institutions they are really helpful. It’s difficult for the artist who has to dedicate the best part of a year to making a show just to be nominated and it’s a huge commitment, a bit like finding yourself pregnant when you don’t want to be.