Further information announced for The Hepworth Prize for Sculpture

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.

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 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) 2018 is a new reimagining of Hatoum’s iconic neon globe, where the whole world pulses with conflict.

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 production, 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 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 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 multi-layered practice fuses intellectual rigour with poetics.