From the flamboyant to the intimate, action and performance are the common threads that link the artists shortlisted for this year’s £40,000 Artes Mundi Prize. From Phil Collins offering reality TV contestants a platform to critique their manipulation by the media, to the meticulous understatement through which Teresa Margolles addresses drug violence in Mexico, the seven artists use a wide range of materials, actions, and strategies to engage with social issues and comment on society.

The Welsh artist, Tim Davies, has joined the Board of Artes Mundi, the UK’s largest visual art prize, which takes place every two years in Cardiff. Davies is well known to fans of Artes Mundi as the only European artist shortlisted for the inaugural prize in 2004. He represented Wales at the prestigious Venice Biennale last year and is Head of Fine Art at Swansea Metropolitan University.

Congratulations to Artes Mundi 3 nominee Mircea Cantor (Romania, 1977), who was awarded the prestigious Marcel Duchamp Prize on Saturday at the FIAC art fair in Paris.

Nearly 600 artists, from 90 countries, are in the running for the fifth Artes Mundi Prize after a surge in nominations. Artes Mundi is the United Kingdom’s most valuable visual art prize, last won by Yael Bartana in 2010.

Jess joins the Artes Mundi team whilst undertaking her MA in Curatorial Practice at Bath Spa University. Her ongoing interests lie within the domestic sphere, objects of attachment and memory, material processes that deconstruct and reconstruct associations and our sense of self.

In a move that invites direct comparisons with the Turner Prize Artes Mundi, the UK’s largest visual art prize, has announced that its fifth exhibition and prize will move from its usual slot in the spring to the autumn of 2012.

Artes Mundi and the sponsors of the Artes Mundi 4 Exhibition and Prize did well at the Arts & Business Awards in Wales on 12 July 2011. The partnerships with global brands Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Starbucks Coffee Company were both recognised as excellent . . .

Artes Mundi’s six Liveguides are our frontline. During Artes Mundi 4 they talked to over 5,500 exhibition visitors. Watch this 8 minute film to hear about their experiences and their favourite works.