2026 Erarta Prize Winners

05 June 2026

The winners of the third annual contemporary art prize judged by the viewers have been announced

The closing gala event and awards ceremony of the 2026 Erarta Prize took place on 4 June. The nominated artists, the viewers, Erarta team members, and members of the press assembled at Erarta’s Grand Hall for the announcement of the project’s final results. The total prize value of 3.5 million rubles was distributed among the 40 nominees according to the viewers’ vote.

The first edition of this large-scale project took place in 2023: the Erarta Prize was inaugurated as the first ever contemporary art prize awarded through a public vote rather than by a board of experts.

For the 2026 edition, following an open call for entries, the museum’s team selected a total of 40 Prize nominees. Their artworks were showcased at a special exhibition organised to determine the winners through a public viewer vote. The 2026 Erarta Prize show featured paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, mosaics, installations, photographs, as well as other contemporary art media.

Over the span of four months, exhibition visitors voted for their favourite artworks in two voting rounds. The voting procedure was completely transparent: everyone could monitor the actual distribution of votes between the artists in real time by looking at the screens installed in the exhibition space and see their own votes being counted.

In the course of the first voting round that lasted through 20 April, the viewers visiting the Prize nominees’ exhibition for the first ten weeks had given the majority of votes to the 10 artists who were then shortlisted for the second round. The second voting round that came to a close on 3 June determined the final prize distribution as follows:

Grand Prix, 500,000 rubles – Uspekh Provalov. Midsummer Night

2nd place, 200,000 rubles – Maxim Korolkov. Time Is on My Side

3rd place, 175,000 rubles – Lev Kozhin. Ozymandias

4th place, 150,000 rubles – Andrey Shatilov. Enough for All!

5th place, 125,000 rubles – Alyona Zhamozdik. Memory No. . . .

6th place, 100,000 rubles – Eduard Mishkin. A Time to Gather

7th place, 100,000 rubles – Irina Pyankova. Dad’s Coat

8th place, 100,000 rubles – DIMITRIEV & YANAK. Touching

9th place, 100,000 rubles – Aleksey Golovin. Wanderer

10th place, 100,000 rubles – Anastasia Golubeva. Illusion

Erarta Museum would like to thank everyone who took an active part in awarding the 2026 Erarta Prize. Together we could carry through this one-of-a-kind project that perfectly embodies the museum’s core values and is bound to continue.

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!