Julien Prévieux Wins €35,000 Marcel Duchamp Prize

Julien Prévieux Photo via: Biennale d'art contemporain Anglet

Contemporary art’s love affair with dance shows no sign of abating. To prove the point, Julien Prévieux has just been awarded France’s prestigious Prix Marcel Duchamp for his project What Shall We do Next (2006-2011), conceived as both a “choreography and a film,” reports France Info.

The 40-year-old, Grenoble-born artist will pocket €35,000 and land a solo show at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, due to open in September 2015. The prize also sports a €30,000 production budget for the exhibition. It is awarded ever year by ADIAF (Association pour la diffusion internationale de l’art français), a group of 350 contemporary art collectors working in partnership with the Pompidou.

What Shall We do Next is based on “the regulated behaviours of our everyday life,” explains the artist. It is performed by actors and dancers.

Prévieux came to prominence in the early noughties for his absurdist videos and interventions. He is most famous for the Lettres de non-motivation (2000-ongoing) he sent in response to job ads (as opposed the lettres de motivation, or statement of motivation, typically sent to employers by jobseekers). His work has been shown extensively in France and abroad, including at the Barnsdall Art Park Foundation in Los Angeles and the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art in Riga.

Prévieux beats Théo Mercier, Florian & Michaël Quistrebert, and Evariste Richer. He is represented in Paris by Jousse Entreprise.


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