Yes, You Can Nominate Artists for the Turner Prize

Be a part of art history.

Tate Britain. Photo: Courtesy of Tate.

Everyone knows that the Turner Prize, awarded by London’s Tate, is one of the most prestigious in the art world. Everyone probably knows that it carries a £25,000 purse ($35,000 at current exchange rates), and that it often ushers the recipients into a new career stage. You’ve heard all about the smackdowns administered to the shortlisted artists and the victorious ones in publications worldwide.

What many people don’t know is that you can nominate artists yourself via a simple form on Tate’s website. Yes, you, too, can have a part in art history, if make your recommendation before April 4. You’ll need to come up with a British artist under fifty, and name an exceptional exhibition or other presentation of her or his work in the previous year.

Past winners range from architecture collective Assemble (2015) to sound artist Susan Philipsz (2010), as well as video- and filmmaker Steve McQueen (who won in 1999 and would later go on to win an Oscar).

Some were more controversial than others, of course.

Who could forget shark-in-formaldehyde specialist Damien Hirst‘s 1995 win, which involved “a bisected cow and calf,” or 2003 winner Grayson Perry, who is one of the only ceramicists to receive the award? Painter Malcolm Morley, who took home the first Turner Prize, named for English painter Joseph Mallord William Turner, in 1984.

The shortlist will be announced on May 12, 2016.

The 2016 Turner Prize Jury is made up of Beatrix Ruf, director of the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Simon Wallis, director of the Hepworth Wakefield; independent curator Tamsin Dillon; Michelle Cotton, the director of Germany’s Bonner Kunstverein; and Tate Britain director Alex Farquharson.


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