The Museum Haus Konstruktiv and Zurich Insurance Group Ltd have announced that the artist Marguerite Humeau is the winner of the 2017 Zurich Art Prize, for which she will receive 100,000 CHF ($100,000).

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Humeau is the first winner to receive an additional 20,000 CHF ($20,000) cash prize given directly to the artist, on top of the 80,000 CHF ($80,000) prize money that goes towards a solo exhibition at the Museum Haus Konstruktiv in Zurich.

Marguerite Humeau, ECHO, A matriarch engineered to die (2016). Exhibition view Palais de Tokyo, Paris.
Courtesy the artist, CLEARING, New York/Brussels, DUVE, Berlin.

According to a statement, Humeau was awarded the prize because her “works formulate an independent position characterized by scientific curiosity and precision, while also sharing parallels with the scientific basis of constructivist-concrete art.”

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Her most recent exhibition, entitled “FOXP2” was on view at Palais de Tokyo in Paris, before heading to Nottingham Contemporary, where it was on view until January 15.

The exhibition explored the mutated gene FOXP2, the gene that separates humans from chimpanzees, and which species would have become dominant had humans not evolved. Humeau’s thesis is that elephants would have emerged as the dominant species, and the show is an exploration of this speculative idea through sound and sculpture.

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Humeau has exhibited at MoMA in New York, London’s Hayward Gallery, the Serpentine Gallery, and De La Warr Pavilion.

Prior to receiving the Zurich Art Prize, she was awarded the RCDAV Research Grant from HEAD in Geneva, the Grant for the Arts from the Arts Council England, and Royal British Society of Sculptors Bursary Award.