LONDON (AP) \u2014 Scottish artist Nnena Kalu has been awarded the Turner Prize for work that includes vivid abstract drawings and hanging sculptures\u2026<\/b>
\nScottish artist Nnena Kalu has been awarded the Turner Prize for work that includes vivid abstract drawings and hanging sculptures, the first artist with a learning disability to win Britain\u2019s most famous visual art award.
Kalu, 59, who has autism, received the 25,000-pound ($33,000) prize on Tuesday evening at a ceremony in Bradford, northern England.
Her winning works included a series of brightly colored cocoonlike shapes made of wrapped materials that hung amid the concrete pillars of a disused power station in Barcelona.
The judging panel led by Tate Britain director Alex Farquharson praised the \u201cpowerful presence\u201d of her \u201cbold and compelling\u201d work.
Kalu, who has limited verbal communication, is a resident artist at ActionSpace\u2019s studio, which supports learning disabled artists in London.
Charlotte Hollinshead of ActionSpace said Kalu had \u201cmade history.\u201d
\u201cThis is a major, major moment for a lot of people. It\u2019s seismic. It\u2019s broken a very stubborn glass ceiling,\u201d Hollinshead said onstage at the award ceremony in Bradford, the U.K.\u2019s 2025 city of culture.
Kalu beat three other artists \u2014 Rene Matic, Mohammed Sami and Zadie Xa \u2014 to the prize, which was founded in 1984 and named for 19th-century landscape painter J.M.W. Turner.
Established to promote young British artists, and now open to U.K. artists of any age, the prize helped make stars of shark-pickling artist Damien Hirst, potter Grayson Perry, sculptor Anish Kapoor and filmmaker Steve McQueen.
But it has also been criticized for rewarding impenetrable conceptual work and often sparks debate about the value of modern art. Winners such as Hirst\u2019s \u201cMother and Child Divided,\u201d which consists of two cows, bisected and preserved in formaldehyde, and Martin Creed\u2019s \u201cLights On and Off\u201d \u2014 a room with a light blinking on and off -\u2013 have drawn scorn from sections of the media.
Copyright
\u00a9 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.<\/p>\n