News - Turner Prize 2016 Short-list Announced

Tate Britain has announced the four artists who have been short-listed for the Turner Prize 2016...

The artists are: Michael Dean, Anthea Hamilton, Helen Marten and Josephine Pryde. The Turner Prize returns to Tate Britain with an exhibition of work by the four short-listed artists opening on 27th September. The winner will be announced in December at an awards ceremony live on the BBC, the new broadcast partner for the prize. 

Michael Dean

For solo exhibitions Sic Glyphs at South London Gallery and Qualities of Violence at de Appel arts centre, Amsterdam. Working primarily in sculpture, Dean creates work that is concerned with the physical manifestation of language. His vigorous sculptures and installations reference the everyday urban environment and familiar but aesthetically overlooked materials – from a rebar on a building site to the corrugated metal of a shop shutter – updating the influential legacies of art after minimalism in the late 60s. 

Anthea Hamilton

For her solo exhibition Anthea Hamilton: Lichen! Libido! Chastity! at SculptureCentre, New York. Hamilton works across sculpture, installation, performance and video, bringing a surrealist sensibility to popular culture and the mind-bending proliferation of stylised and sexualised imagery in the digital world. While rooted in the history of sculpture her work seduces the viewer with comic and unexpected combinations of images, materials and words, as well as dramatic shifts in scale. 

Helen Marten

For projects including Lunar Nibs at the 56th Venice Biennale and the solo exhibition Eucalyptus Let Us In at Green Naftali, New York. Marten brings together a wide range of found objects and immaculately crafted elements in her sculptures and painting-like tableaux. While highly evocative of contemporary visual culture, as well as various kinds of art since the 60s, the work is slippery and elusive in both form and meaning: it attracts and intrigues while also resisting interpretation and categorisation. 

Josephine Pryde

For her solo exhibition lapses in Thinking By the person i Am at CCA Wattis, San Francisco. Through photography and installation Pryde explores the very nature of image making and display. She is fascinated by the relationship between art and photography, and by how commodities appear in different images and contexts. Her installations often include sculptural elements which highlight the context in which the work is displayed, placing as much importance on the staging of the work as the images themselves.



The Turner Prize award is £40,000 with £25,000 going to the winner and £5,000 each for the other shortlisted artists. The Prize, established in 1984, is awarded to a British artist under fifty for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work in the twelve months preceding 28 April 2016. One of the best known prizes for the visual arts in the world, the Turner Prize aims to promote public debate around new developments in contemporary British art. Every other year, the prize leaves Tate Britain and is presented at a venue outside the capital.



An exhibition of work by the four artists shortlisted for Turner Prize 2016 will be at Tate Britain from 27 September 2016 until 8 January 2017. Turner Prize 2017 will be presented at Ferens Art Gallery in Hull as part of the UK City of Culture celebrations.



The members of the Turner Prize 2016 jury are Michelle Cotton, Director, Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn; Tamsin Dillon, Curator; Beatrix Ruf, Director, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and Simon Wallis, Director, The Hepworth Wakefield. The jury is chaired by Alex Farquharson, Director of Tate Britain.

Images & Info - Tate Britain

Michael Dean - Clockwise from top left
Installation view of Sic Glyphs 2016, South London Gallery, Image courtesy of the artist, Herald St, London, Mendes Wood DM, Sao Paulo, Supportico Lopez, Berlin, Photo: Andy Keate
Photo of Michael Dean, Photo taken by the artist
Installation view of Sic Glyphs 2016, South London Gallery, Image courtesy of the artist, Herald St, London, Mendes Wood DM, Sao Paulo, Supportico Lopez, Berlin, Photo: Andy Keate

Anthea Hamilton - Clockwise from top left
Portrait of Anthea Hamilton, Photo by Lewis Ronald
Project for Door (After Gaetano Pesce), 2015 installation view, Anthea Hamilton: Lichen! Libido! Chastity!, SculptureCenter, 2015, Courtesy the artist, Photo: Kyle Knodell
Brick Suit, 2010, installation view, Anthea Hamilton: Lichen! Libido! Chastity!SculptureCenter, 2015, Wool, lining, 22 x 5 x 46 inches (55.9 x 12.7 x 116.8 cm), Courtesy the artist. Photo: Kyle Knodell

Helen Martin - Clockwise from top left
Photo of Helen Marten, Photo by Juergen Teller
Night-blooming genera, 2015 (detail), Spun aluminium, airbrushed steel, welded steel, lacquered hardwoods, stitched fabric, handthrown glazed ceramic, leather, glass, feathers, acid etched concrete © The Artist, courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, London and Greene Naftali, New York Photography: Annik Wetter, Geneva
Limpet Apology (traffic tenses), 2015 Screen printing and painting on leather, suede, cotton, velvet; stained and sprayed Ash; folded steel; enamel paint on Balsa wood; airbrushed steel; magnets; inlaid Formica; Cherry © The Artist, courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, London and Greene Naftali, New York Photography: Annik Wetter, Geneva

Josephine Pryde - Clockwise from top left
Photo of Josephine Pryde, Photo: Dan Mitchell
Für Mich 2, 2014, C-print Unframed: 60 x 45 cm (23 5/8 x 17 3/4 in.) Edition of 3 + 2 AP (SLG-JOP-08391) Courtesy of the artist and Simon Lee Gallery, London; Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York; and Galerie Neu, Berlin.
Installation view lapses in Thinking By the person i Am 2015 Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, Image courtesy of Josephine Pryde, Photo: Johnna Arnold

Buy tickets for the Turner Prize 2016 exhibition here.