The announcement for the shortlist for Prix Pictet Consumption has been made. At a ceremony at Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris, 11 artists have been selected. They are:
Adam Bartos (United States)
Motoyuki Daifu (Japan)
Rineke Dijkstra (Netherlands)
Hong Hao (China)
Mishka Henner (Belgium)
Juan Fernando Herrán (Colombia)
Boris Mikhailov (Ukraine)
Abraham Oghobase (Nigeria)
Michael Schmidt (German)
Allan Sekula (United States)
Laurie Simmons (United States).

The Shortlist represents the artists whose work best responds to the theme of Consumption in the eyes of the jury. The 11 artists will now prepare their work for the finalists’ exhibition, which is to be held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, on 21 May 2014 – where the winner of the fifth award will be announced by Kofi Annan.

Michael Schmidt was announced as the winner of the fifth Prix Pictet photography prize, selected from a shortlist of eleven. The winner was chosen for his monumental work Lebensmittel (food stuff) made between 2006 and 2010. The prize, with a value of 100,000 Swiss Francs (USD$112,500, GBP£66,800, EUR€82,000), is sponsored by Swiss wealth and asset managers, the Pictet Group.

Kofi Annan, Honorary President of Prix Pictet, said, ‘the shortlisted artists have made powerful images that ought to persuade governments, businesses – and each of us as individual consumers – of the need for a fundamental rethink of the principles on which present-day affluence is founded. The issue of unsustainable consumption, and in particular food and nutrition security, is not simply at the forefront of the global political stage, it is now firmly on the personal agenda of each and every one of us.’