The Paris-and Luxembourg-based duo David Brognon and Stéphanie Rollin have won the Prix Marcel Duchamp, France’s biggest art prize worth €90,000 in total prize funds, including €35,000 for the winner. The other names shortlisted were the Malagasy artist Joël Andrianomearisoa, the French photographer Laura Henno and the French multidisciplinary artist Josèfa Ntjam.
The shortlisted artists typically receive an exhibition at the Centre Pompidou. However, as the space is closed for the next four years, the award exhibition has launched at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris (until 7 February 2027).
Brognon and Rollin present sound installations, time-based work, and sculptures exploring themes of “confinement, expectation, and control”, says the website for the Institute of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles which hosted a show of their work in 2019.
At the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, their installation entitled 5,376 years, 1,892 months, 1,110 days, 1,201 hours comprises fairground coin-pusher machines filled with "sobriety tokens" awarded by support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous to mark abstinence milestones.
“With Brognon Rollin, the Prix Marcel Duchamp recognises a rigorous body of work that seeks to give form to what typically eludes our gaze: the experience of addiction, and the nature of private, inner resistance. The piece they conceived for the museum—which presents fairground objects as part of a subtle arrangement—radically shifts our perspective,” says Fabrice Hergott, the director of the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, in a statement.
The judging process is a lengthy affair, as is required by the prize founders, the Association for the International Diffusion of French Art (ADIAF). Judges this year include the artist Kader Attia, who won the prize in 2016, the artist Berlinde de Bruyckere and Karin Hindsbo, the interim director of Tate Modern.
The prize, launched in 2000, is awarded annually to a visual artist of French nationality or residence. Past winners include Gaëlle Choisne (2024), Cyprien Gaillard (2010) and Tatiana Trouvé (2007). Last year the Chinese painter Xie Lei was awarded the prize.
