Artes Mundi: Winner of the £40,000 prize to be announced

The winner of the UK’s most valuable art prize, the Artes Mundi, an international accolade for contemporary artists, will be revealed at 8pm tomorrow.

Ahead of the announcement, The Independent Online takes a look at the 8 artists shortlisted from around 500 entries, one of whom stands to win £40,000 - twice the value of the prestigious Turner Prize.

Those shortlisted have been selected because, despite being big hitters globally, they’ve received little exposure in this country. Tessa Jackson, Artistic Director of Artes Mundi, said: “The purpose of the exhibition is to recognise deserving talent and to introduce a wider range of artists to Britain. It is a mark of the prize’s impact that artists like Subodh Gupta, Xu Bing and Michal Rovner have [resultingly] established or enhanced their reputations in the UK.”

The entrants are a global bunch: Yael Bartana is from Israel, Fernando Bryce comes from Peru, Ergin Çavu?o?lu was born in Bulgaria, Chen Chieh-jen lives in Taiwan, Olga Chernysheva is from Russia, artistic couple Gulnara Kasmalieva and Muratbek Djumaliev are Kyrgyzstani and Adrian Paci hails from Albania.

This is only the fifth ever Artes Mundi, and this year the entrants were asked to consider issues of humanity, national identity and globalisation. Much of the work is new media, with video installation and documentary photography dominating an exhibition of the work which has been on display at the National Museum of Cardiff since early March.

Click here or on the image above to view work by the shortlist

The Artes Mundi exhibition at the National Museum of Cardiff runs until 6 June 2010, opening hours 10am to 5pm Tuesday to Sunday, entry is free. www.museumofwales.ac.uk