Erarta Museum presented the 2026 Erarta Prize exhibition featuring the nominees for its annual contemporary art prize
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The only contemporary art prize awarded through a public vote rather than by a board of experts
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Artworks by 40 contemporary talents – paintings, drawings, prints, mosaics, sculptures, installations, and photographs – featured in a large-scale show at Erarta’s Grand Hall
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The total prize value for the artists amounted to 3.5 million rubles
The Erarta Prize is an annual contemporary art prize judged by the viewers. This premise is consistent with Erarta’s core philosophy: art is being created by the artist, but it is the viewers’ perception that makes it truly powerful.
For the Prize’s fourth edition in 2026, Erarta once again encouraged its visitors to select their favourite artwork according to their own choices and preferences. As always, Erarta Museum acted as the curator of the contestants’ exhibition (by selecting the exhibits and staging the actual show), but neither took part in determining the winners nor invited other experts from the professional community to do so.
Every viewer had one vote for each of the two voting rounds. All holders of valid Erarta Museum Tickets and Memberships from various parts of Russia who could not travel to St. Petersburg during the period of the exhibition had the option to vote in absentia.
For the 2026 edition of the Prize, all nominated artists enjoyed the opportunity to sell their works featured in the exhibition through the agency of the museum. This means that the viewers not only had their say in the prize money distribution but could also acquire their favourite artwork for their private collection.
The first voting round lasted from 6 February through 20 April. It had shortlisted the 10 winning artists whose works went on to compete in the second round from 21 April through 3 June. Every vote was extremely important for the artists: it was the viewers’ support that helped them achieve a higher ranking and ultimately win a bigger prize. Please visit prize.erarta.com to learn more about the voting and prize awarding procedure.
Details of the next open call for entries will be announced in the autumn of 2026: stay tuned to our website erarta.com and Erarta’s social media for updates.
See you at the 2027 Erarta Prize!
