The Turner Prize was established in 1984 and is named after the widely renowned artist JMW Turner. It is a greatly coveted and prestigious prize in contemporary British art. Every year a shortlist of British artists under the age of 50 who have held outstanding exhibitions of their artwork in the last 12 months is compiled. An exhibition of their work is then held at the Tate Britain and a jury decides who the winner of the prize and $25,000 is. The prize incorporates multiple forms of artistic media and is often controversial as it has recently aimed to attract public attention and publicity with its choice of exhibits.

The 2016 Turner Prize exhibition at the Tate Britain will see work of the four artists nominated this year on display between 27th September and 2nd January 2017. Anthea Hamilton works with a diverse range of sculpture and has been nominated for an exhibition in New York where she made an impact by revealing the 18ft sculpture of a man’s bare buttocks pictured below. Helen Marten also works with sculpture and exhibited in New York, however she works closely with visual culture and images of everyday life. Moreover Michael Dean’s art focuses on the physical representation of language in sculpture and his previous exhibitions were in London and Amsterdam. The final nominee for this year’s prize is Josephine Pryde who recently exhibited her photography and instillation themed artwork in San Francisco. The winner will be announced on the 6th December, before the end of the exhibition.

In the past the Turner Prize has been awarded to many artists who have gone on to become greatly successful and famous today. Damien Hirst is reportedly the UK’s richest currently living artist and he was the winner of the prize in 1995. He drew much attention when he displayed a bisected cow and calf in his exhibit entitled Mother and Child, Divided. In 1999 the now famous movie director Steve McQueen won the prize for various video projects. He has gone on to direct the best-picture Oscar winning film 12 Years A Slave in 2013. Last year, in 2015, a direct action collective group of 31 members called Assemble won the Turner Prize. They were nominated for their urban regeneration project where they use art to improve people’s homes.