The Hepworth Wakefield has announced the shortlist for its 2018 Hepworth Prize for Sculpture. It is the second time around for the biennial award for British-based sculptors who have made a significant contribution to the form.
This year’s roster comprises five artists – one more than in 2016. They are Michael Dean, Mona Hatoum, Phillip Lai, Magali Reus and Cerith Wyn Evans. Helen Marten, the inaugural laureate, pledged to share her £30,000 win – as well as the £25,000 she won for the Turner prize she landed a few months later – with her fellow nominees
Simon Wallis, director of the Hepworth Wakefield and chair of the nominating panel, said that the shortlist was chosen in order to create a great show, to be exhibited at the Hepworth between October and January. “We were excited about this mix of artists, all at pivotal moments in their careers, doing thrilling, unexpected things,” he said.
The prize is open to sculptors of any age or stage in their career. “It’s not just about young people,” says Wallis. While all five live and work in London, their backgrounds and career paths have greatly differed.
Reus, the youngest at 37, is a Dutch graduate from Goldsmiths College, London, and Amsterdam’s Rijks Academy, with a forthcoming show at the South London Gallery. Her work – meticulous and slick, somewhat cool, with off-kilter detailing (bent coat hangers, casts of sliced bread, a celeb autograph on the side of a slick surface) – alludes to modern design and industrial production in both form and feel.
Palestinian artist Hatoum has been in the UK since her early 20s, having moved to London from Beirut in 1975. Her work takes in installation, sculpture and film. She frequently repurposes household objects to dramatic effect – for instance, her 6ft cheese grater-shaped room divider.
Lai, too, makes use of familiar items, altering or diverting them in altogether more abstract, minimalist ways. Born in 1969 in Kuala Lumpur, he studied at Chelsea College of Art and Design.
Dean, who is 10 years Lai’s junior and comes from Newcastle, was Marten’s fellow 2016 Turner prize nominee, in which his installation included a pile of pennies amounting to £20,436, the amount the government states is the annual minimum a family of four can live on.
Wyn Evans, from Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, started out as an experimental film-maker. His recent shows include last year’s Tate Britain Duveen commission, where he exhibited a graphically exuberant display of neon lights.
Wallis said that the shortlist is the result of rigorous debate, and that the prize seeks to examine what sculpture is – which is also the mission of the Hepworth Wakefield. “Sculpture is a fluid art form, and defining it gets more challenging every year.”
In response to his nomination, Dean said: “I can’t even start to speak of what Hepworth means to me as an artist but I’m properly chuffed to have the chance to contribute to the amazing work the Hepworth Wakefield is doing.”
The winner will be announced in November.
