The Contemporary Art Society is delighted to announce that one of the UK’s most pioneering and celebrated contemporary artists, Mark Wallinger, is to present this year’s Contemporary Art Society Annual Award. Now in its fifth year, the prestigious £60,000 prize is one of highest value contemporary art awards in the country, and is awarded to a UK museum to commission an artist of their choice to create a new work for their permanent collection.
Internationally recognised painter, sculptor and video artist Mark Wallinger is renowned for his humorous and often sceptical social commentary often focusing on nationalism, royalty and the class system. One of Charles Saatchi’s original Young British Artists, Wallinger is a two time nominee and winner of the Turner Prize. He was the first artist to occupy Trafalgar Square’s prestigious Fourth Plinth in 1999 and is also well-known for his work, State Britain (2007), a recreation at Tate Britain of Brian Haw’s protest display outside Parliament.
Wallinger will present the £60,000 prize at a ceremony on 18 November 2013 at The Dairy Art Centre in London, in the presence of the shortlisted artists and museums, curators, art collectors and art world VIPs. Previous presenters of the award have included Grayson Perry, Cornelia Parker and Jeremy Deller.
The 2013 shortlist is:
– Artist Elizabeth Price for the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology in partnership with the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Ruskin School of Drawing & Fine Art
– Artist Jess Flood-Paddock for Birmingham Museums
– Artist Des Hughes for The Hepworth Wakefield
– Artist Lucy McKenzie for Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
This year’s judging panel comprises Brian Griffiths (Artist), Charlotte Higgins (Chief Arts Writer, The Guardian), Elizabeth Neilson (Director, Zabludowicz Collection) and Kirsty Ogg (Curator, Whitechapel Gallery).
For more information on the award or the reception on 18 November, contact robert@contemporaryartsociety.org