The shortlist for the Turner Prize, the UK’s most prestigious art award, was announced today at a press conference broadcast online from Tate Britain in London. The four shortlisted artists are Simeon Barclay, Kira Freije, Marguerite Humeau and Tanoa Sasraku.
An exhibition of the artists’ work will open at the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (Mima) on 26 September and the winner will be announced on 10 December during a ceremony at the museum. The winner will be awarded £25,000 while the three runners-up will get £10,000 each.
The prize has been running since 1984 and previous winners include Nnena Kalu, Lubaina Himid, Grayson Perry, Damien Hirst and Rachel Whiteread. Artists are nominated for the award based on a recent exhibition or presentation of their work.
The Turner Prize jury is chaired by the Tate Britain director Alex Farquharson, who says: “This year’s selection presents a rich and diverse range of work, spanning installation and performance, and with a strong emphasis on sculptural practice.”
Simeon Barclay's The Ruin being performed at the ICA in London in January 2025 Presented by the Roberts Institute of ArtsPhoto © Anne Tetzlaff. Courtesy of the Artist & Workplace
The Huddersfield-born artist Simeon Barclay has been shortlisted for his spoken word and music performance The Ruin, which took place at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London, the Hepworth Wakefield in West Yorkshire, and the New Art Exchange in Nottingham. The nominated work is Barclay’s first performance piece. He usually works across a range of mediums, including carefully constructed installations inspired by his background as an industrial machinist. The jury commended The Ruin’s “Britishness, class, race and masculine identity, through an evocative, experimental use of language and a psychologically immersive soundscape.”
Installation view of Kira Freije's Unspeak the Chorus at the Hepworth Wakefield Photo: © Lewis Ronald
The London-born and based Kira Freije was chosen for her exhibition Unspeak the Chorus at the Hepworth Wakefield (until 4 May), which will travel to Modern Art Oxford (23 May-16 August). The show includes a tableau of life-size figures constructed from fabric, stainless steel and the artist’s hands and feet cast in aluminium, topped with faces cast from people she knows. One of the jury members, the Arts Council Collection director Alona Pardo, says the jury were particularly impressed by the way “industrial materials are transformed” by the artist to create these “hybrid beings”.
Marguerite Humeau's Torches at the Helsinki Art Museum © Marguerite Humeau. Photo: Julia Andreone. Courtesy of the artist
Marguerite Humeau has been nominated for her show Torches at Arken Museum of Contemporary Art, near Copenhagen, and the Helsinki Art Museum. The London-based French artist works in a variety of media but is perhaps best known for her uncanny sculptures that play with natural forms, and that are made with organic substances such as beeswax and yeast alongside more traditional materials like bronze and alabaster. Humeau's inspirations include, among others, Leonora Carrington, Marlene Dumas and Pierre Huyghe as she told The Art Newspaper’s podcast A brush with... in 2023.
A detail of Tanoa Sasraku's Watchlist (2025) in her exhibition Morale Patch at the ICA in London Image © Jack Elliot Edwards, courtesy the artist and Vardaxoglou Gallery, London
The Plymouth-born, Glasgow-based Tanoa Sasraku has been selected for the exhibition Morale Patch at the ICA in London. The exhibition explored the social and political history of oil and included found objects such as acrylic paperweights containing a small amount of crude oil, which were originally commissioned by oil companies. Sasraku sees oil “not only as a substance but a system of power”, Pardo says. The artist also created prints for the show using the ultraviolet light of a tanning bed. Her works are often temporary in nature, as she recently told The Art Newspaper: “I don’t need to live forever and I don’t see that the work needs to either.”
Alongside the aforementioned Pardo, the selection jury consists of Sarah Allen, the head of programme at the South London Gallery; Joe Hill, the director of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park; and Sook-Kyung Lee, the director of The Whitworth in Manchester.
• Turner Prize 2026, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, 26 September-29 March 2027
