The Prix Marcel Duchamp

The French equivalent of the UK’s Turner Prize for contemporary art is named – perhaps more appropriately – after conceptual pioneer Marcel Duchamp. The Marcel Duchamp Prize (Prix Marcel Duchamp) doesn’t garner as much publicity as the Turner Prize but the reward is as generous: €35,000 to the winner and up to €30,000 to produce an exhibition (at the Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Pompidou).

The shortlist for the 2014 prize was announced last week. An all-male line up brings us self-taught Théo Mercier with his scatological, ready-made aesthetic; geometrically-inspired brothers Florian & Michael Quistrebert; Evariste Richer with his pseudo-scientific installations; and the provocative Julien Prévieux.

The winner will be announced at the FIAC (Foire Internationale d’art contemporain), France’s foremost contemporary art fair, in October 2014. The jury will include the Centre Pompidou’s new director, Bernard Blistène, Thierry Raspail, director of the Lyon Biennale and American curator Robert Storr.

Set up in 2000 by the Association for the International Diffusion of French Art (ADIAF), an association of private collectors, in partnership with the Centre Pompidou, the prize is awarded annually from a shortlist of four. Previous laureates include Tatiana Trouvé (2007) and Romanian-born Mircea Cantor (2011).

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