People's choice: The Hepworth Prize for Sculpture

The Hepworth Prize for Sculpture was established in 2016 and is named after Barbara Hepworth, one of the most famous British sculptors. It is awarded by The Hepworth Wakefield Gallery in Yorkshire.

The works of the artists who made it into the shortlist will be on display at The Hepworth Wakefield Gallery from 26 October 2018. 

The gallery now gives you the chance to vote on who will win this year's Hepworth Prize for Sculpture. From October 25th, you can vote for your favourite! 

The award ceremony will then take place in January 2019.

This year's nominees for the Hepworth Prize

Michael Dean

Michael Dean will present a new installation extending the investigations of his most recent work. Dean’s sculptures begin with his writing, which he translates into physical form – from letter-like human-scale figures in concrete and steel reinforcement, to self-published books deployed as sculptural elements. His sculptures confront viewers with what he describes as
‘moments of intensity’ made from the matter of contemporary life – including doctored detritus, basic building materials, coins, crime scene tape, padlocks, and, most recently, the three-day food bank emergency allowance currently provided to a family of four in the UK.

Installation shot of Michael Dean's "Having you on" in The Hepworth Prize for Sculpture. Photo,

Stuart Whipps. Courtesy The Hepworth Wakefield and Herald St, London.

Mona Hatoum

Mona Hatoum will show two new sculptures alongside significant earlier works, revealing the breadth of her explorations of contradictions and conflicts. Hatoum’s
sculptural projects use reduced physical means and shifts of scale and materials to destabilise our perceptions. In the new work Orbital of 2018, the artist transforms reinforcement steel into a globe encrusted with meteor-like clumps of rubble, resulting in a work reminiscent of demolished buildings. Hot Spot (stand) is a new reimagining of Hatoum’s iconic neon globe, where the whole world pulses with conflict.

Phillip Lai

Phillip Lai will debut a group of new sculptures alongside his 2016 work Guest loves host in a way like no other. Using existing mass-produced objects as well as his own precisely fabricated forms, Lai’s surprising and poetic arrangements investigate ideas of roduction, consumption and hospitality. A major new work consisting of a series of stacked cast polyurethane basins will unfold across one long wall of the gallery space. Lai describes these objects as images of an ‘absurd expenditure of labour’, their accumulation invoking both the protracted processes of the artist and the construction activity implied by their cement-marked surfaces.

 Magali Reus

Magali Reus will present an installation of new sculptures alongside an architectural intervention in the gallery space. Reus’ works hint at functionality but present a material reality detached from any specific purpose. New works from Reus’ series Sentinel combine references to woven fire hoses and nozzles with more amorphous elements cast in fibreglass with metal appendages. Reus will also present four works from a new series, Dearest, which incorporate re-imagined ladders, hats and bottles in sculptural configurations that cast them as protagonists in the delivery of a romantic serenade.

Cerith Wyn Evans

Cerith Wyn Evans will debut a major new work comprising two intersecting arcs of glass crystal musical flutes suspended in the gallery space. Powered by two mechanical lungs that inhale and exhale according to a specially-conceived algorithm, the 40 flutes are individually pitched to perform Wyn Evans’s new composition. Wyn Evans often incorporates sound into his work and orchestrates his installations within architectural structures to influence the audience’s spatial experience. His interdisciplinary and multilayered practice fuses intellectual rigour with poetics.

Cerith Wyn Evans: Installation shot of work by Cerith Wyn Evans in The Hepworth Prize for Sculpture. Photo, Stuart Whipps

Visitors to the exhibition will see the artists talking about their art in a series of newly
commissioned short films. Visitors will also be invited to share their own thoughts and
choose their winner on The Hepworth Wakefield’s website.

Help to vote on hepworthwakefield.org/prize/!