Jurors for the 2010 prize are Isabel Carlos, director of the Centro de Arte Moderna in Lisbon; Andrew Nairne, executive director of arts strategy for Arts Council England; Chisenhale Gallery director Polly Staple; and novelist and art critic Philip Hensher.

And the four finalists? The massively successful graffiti artist Banksy is not among them, a fact noted by several British newspapers. The shortlist includes:

* Dexter Dalwood (b. 1960), a David Hockney-inspired painter who, like many of his peers, treats subjects of topical political and social interest -- with a special focus on death scenes -- though using strong colors and broad expanses of paint. Dalwood, who with Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles, London and in New York (in 2004), is cited for his solo exhibition at Tate St. Ives. He has a strong auction record, with 23 works in the Artnet price database; Brian Jones’ Swimming Pool (2000) sold at Sotheby’s London in 2007 for £144,000 (ca. $283,000). According to British bookie William Hill, Dalwood is a 2-to-1 favorite to win the prize.

* Angela de la Cruz (b. 1965) was born in Spain and took a BA in philosophy before attending Goldsmiths College and the Slade School of Art in London. She exhibits her paintings -- often monochrome abstractions that have been removed from their stretchers and installed without a "masculine" architectonic underpinning -- at Lisson in London, Galerie Krinzinger in Vienna and Wetterling Gallery in Stockholm. She was included in "Global Feminisms" in the U.S., where reviewer Michéle C. Cone called her work "wonderful." Her relatively modest auction results include sales in 2008 and 2009 for ca. $14,800 and $12,800, respectively.

For the Turner Prize, de la Cruz was cited for "After," a show at Camden Arts Centre in London. (It is also rather opaquely said that she "uses the language of painting and sculpture to create striking works that evoke memory and desire through combining formal tension with a deeper emotional presence.")

* Susan Philipsz (b. 1965) is a Glasgow-born sound artist, celebrated for ethereal installations of her own voice singing popular and classical songs, often sited in strange and evocative places. She has been very popular on the international exhibition circuit, with works were included in Sculpture Project Münster in 2007, the 2008 Carnegie International, the 2008 Folkestone Triennial, and the current Glasgow International Festival of Visual Arts and "Haunted" at the Guggenheim Museum. She exhibits in New York at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, and has no auction record as yet. 

* The Otolith Group, which was founded by Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun in 2000, was cited for "A Long Time Between Suns," a pair of exhibitions at Gasworks and The Showroom, two spaces in London. The group "works with media archives, histories of futurity, the legacies of non-alignment and tricontinentalism," according to its website. Otolith I, "a kind of post-colonial science fiction film" was included in "Ecotopia" at the International Center of Photography in New York in 2007 (with Richard Couzins included in the group).

As Tate Britain points out on its website, for the Turner Prize, which was founded in 1984, women made up only 29 percent of the shortlisted artists, 39 percent of its jury, and only three women won the prize (Tomma Abts, Gillian Wearing and Rachel Whiteread).

ARTISTS ANNOUNCED FOR BERLIN BIENNALE
The sixth Berlin Biennale, June 11-Aug. 8, 2010, is curated by former Kölnischer Kunstverein director Kathrin Rhomberg and takes place at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, the organizing institution, as well as at the Alte Nationalgalerie and four sites in Berlin’s Kreuzberg sector.

Artists participating in the biennale are Bernard Bazile, Mark Boulos, Mohamed Bourouissa, Olga Chernysheva, Phil Collins, Minerva Cuevas, Shannon Ebner, Nir Evron, Marcus Geiger, Ion Grigorescu, Friedl vom Gröller (Kubelka), Nilbar Güres, Petrit Halilaj, Marlene Haring, Cameron Jamie, Sven-Åke Johansson, Thomas Judin, George Kuchar, Andrey Kuzki, Thomas Locher, Adrian Lohmüller, Armando Lulaj, Renzo Martens, Adolph Menzel, Avi Mograbi, Henrik Olesen, Roman Ondák, Marion von Osten, Ferhat Özgür, Margaret Salmon, Hans Schabus, Michael Schmidt, Ruti Sela & Maayan Amir, Gedi Sibony, John Smith, Michael Stevenson, Sebastian Stumpf, Ron Tran, Danh Vo, Marie Voignier, Vincent Vulsma, Anna Witt, and Pleurad Xhafa / Sokol Peçi.

The biennale also includes "Menzel’s Extreme Realism," curated by art historian Michael Fried; "The Living Currency," a suite of performances of works by artists ranging from Pierre Klossowski and Pier Paolo Calzolari to Santiago Sierra and Franz West; and "Searching for the Post-Capitalist Self," a special number of the e-flux journal.

SEARCHING FOR LEO & GERTRUDE (THEIR ART, THAT IS)
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is preparing a fascinating exhibition on pioneering modern art collectors Gertrude and Leo Stein -- and it needs your help. For "The Steins and the Parisian Avant-Garde," which also considers the contributions of Sarah and Michael Stein, the museum is seeking information on more than 50 works that were once in the Stein collections. Among the missing artworks are several Blue Period and Cubist works by Pablo Picasso, including Le Journal (1912), which was sold at Sotheby’s in 1999, and works by Braque, Cézanne, Gauguin, Gris, Matisse, Masson, Renoir and others. For further details, click here.

"VISITING MASTERPIECES" AT BOSTON MFA
Students of the museum-world recession note that exhibitions get smaller and smaller, and thus cheaper. The latest iteration of the "Now on View: One Artwork" exhibition is coming to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, whose new Visiting Masterpiece series juxtaposes an artwork from the museum collection with one borrowed from another museum. Thus Vincent van Gogh’s 1888 The Sower from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam goes on view alongside Jean-François Millet’s 1850 painting of the same subject from the MFA collection, a work that provided van Gogh with his model and inspiration (he did 13 variations of the work). The show goes on view May 11-Aug. 8, 2010.

GALLERY NIGHTS IN NEW YORK CITY
Why should art fairs have all the fun? New York art dealers have teamed up once again this spring to produce not one but two "gallery nights," with galleries along 57th Street and Madison Avenue organizing special openings in unison.

First up is Gallery Night on 57th Street on Thursday, May 6, 2010, 5-8:30 pm, with more than 50 galleries between Lexington Avenue and 8th Avenue joining in the festivities. There’s no website, but be assured, all the galleries are open, including those just off 57th on Fifth Avenue.

The 3rd Annual Madison Avenue Gallery Walk is set for Saturday, May 15, 2010, 11 am-6 pm, with more than 60 gallereis stretching from the Fuller Building on East 57th Street up to Adelson Galleries and Guild Antiques up at East 82nd Street. For details, see www.madisonavenuegallerywalk.com

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