Gaëlle Choisne Wins Prix Marcel Duchamp, France’s Top Art Award

Gaëlle Choisne is this year’s winner of the Prix Marcel Duchamp, the top art award in France.

The 39-year-old French-Haitian artist will receive a €35,000 grant ($38,000 USD) and a two-year residency in at the porcelain factory Sèvres – Manufacture and Musée Nationaux.

“I’m thrilled to have a large space within the exhibition, because that creates something fairly immersive, which goes well with my art,” the artist told the Center Pompidou, which announced the news of the prize on its website on October 14.

The other finalists were Abdelkader Benchamma, Noémie Goudal, and the duo Angela Detanico & Rafael Lain.

Choisne and the other finalists are all showing their work in Paris at the Centre Pompidou. Her Choisne’s installation at the institution was described by Centre Pompidou Magazine editor-in-chief Séverine Pierron as a “temporal and sensorial journey in a recomposed space.”

“On the floor: dyed, black concretions made of cork, like a volcanic beach; on the walls: large painted panels adorned with a collection of various found items; in the centre: hive-like structures, also made of cork, from which video sequences are projected,” Pierron wrote.

The artist’s practice combines a documentary approach to images (photography and video) with the use of raw materials in sculptures and installations to address sociopolitical issues.

Choisne studied at the Fine Arts Academy in Amsterdam and the Fine Arts School in Lyon. Her work has been exhibited at the 2021 New Museum Triennial and the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin; it is currently featured in this year’s Toronto Biennial and the Gwangju Biennale in South Korea. The artist lives and works between Paris and Berlin with her dog Satché.