Le prix Marcel Duchamp 2022

Created on the eve of the new millennium by the Association pour la diffusion internationale de l’art français (ADIAF) and the Centre Pompidou as an observatory of the French art scene, the Marcel Duchamp Prize has become a historic event over the years. This adjective might suggest an already institutionalised future, albeit a glorious one, in a period in constant search of immediacy. But this is not the case. With each new edition, the Marcel Duchamp Prize proves to be emblematic of the diverse art practices of a French art scene permeated by originality and force. Its sometimes controversial selection process or presentation is closely watched, often debated, and it shines, despite the current world events, above all for its number one and most important mission: promoting artists and their work. The Marcel Duchamp Prize is a beacon, just as other prizes are for literature or music, and is eagerly awaited in a country characterised by its marked taste for prizes and awards.

Giulia Andreani combines period images and archives in a pictorial work made using a single shade – Payne grey – that reveals individual destinies, often feminine and abandoned, to underline dominant relationships and their subjacent metaphysics from a historical perspective. Historical memory also underpins the work of Iván Argote, in a sculptural, performative, and cinematic piece in which he questions the symbolic nature of historic colonial monuments in European public space. And whilst Philippe Decrauzat’s work belongs as much to the heritage of pop art as minimalist art, his installations stand out thanks to the physical experience of visitors in the two exhibition spaces designed for the Marcel Duchamp Prize. Mimosa Echard interrogates the omnipresence of flux in our society through the presence of an “uninterrupted architectural object” and confronts us with the technological and organic imperatives of our time.