Turner Prize replaced with £100,000 fund for artists

Alex Farquharson, director of Tate Britain, explained that the Turner Prize will not take place this year because of the pandemic crisis. “We can all look forward to it returning in 2021”, he said while announcing that the contemporary art prize launched in 1984 will award one-off bursaries of £10,000 to ten artists. Turner Prize is eligible to artists born or based in the UK for outstanding exhibitions or other presentations of their work in the previous 12 months.

Farquharson has also added: “Gallery closures and social distancing measures are vitally important, but they are also causing huge disruption to the lives and livelihoods of artists. The practicalities of organising a Turner Prize exhibition are impossible in the current circumstances, so we have decided to help support even more artists during this exceptionally difficult time.”

The 2020 prize jury members are Richard Birkett, Curator at Large at the Institute of Contemporary Arts; Sarah Munro, Director of BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art; Fatoş Üstek, Director of Liverpool Biennial; and Duro Olowu, designer and curator.