Biennale Arte 2026
Image: Yto Barrada, Flea Market series, Tangier (Fig. 4), 2018-2023, C-print, 62,2 x 76,2 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Polaris
ART
Yto Barrada
French Pavilion Commission
French-Moroccan artist Yto Barrada, whose practice centres geopolitical concerns like climate change and migration, will represent France at the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2026. Yto Barrada was selected "for her multidisciplinary practice that unites various artistic and social communities in search of a new utopia". The selection committee called Barrada an "iconoclastic researcher" and "a borderless and holistic artist", adding that she has reinvented "social sculpture" through alternative pedagogies. Her work will replace Julien Creuzet's installation at the current French Pavilion in Venice, closing on November 24.
About the French Pavilion Commission
Biennale de Dakar 2024
Image: Agnès Brézéphin, Fil(s) de soi(e), 2024, sculpture, 22-inch video (16:9 ratio), embroidery and sewing, quilt, silks and various elements, 150 x 150 x 55 cm. © Armelle Malvoisin
ART
Agnès Brézéphin
Grand Prix Léopold Sédar Senghor
The 15th edition of the Biennale de l’Art Contemporain Africain de Dakar runs until December 7 under the direction of French-Senegalese artist Salimata Diop (37), the first woman to be appointed artistic director of the event. The Grand Prix Léopold Sédar Senghor was awarded to the sculpture and video installation Fil(s) de soi(e) by Martinican artist Agnès Brézéphin, who delicately and resiliently addresses her personal experience of incest by proposing to repair bruised bodies through embroidery.
About the Grand Prix Léopold Sédar Senghor
Académie des beaux-arts
Prix Pierre Cardin 2024
Image: Dora Jeridi, Intoxicated Rest, 2024. Oil, oil stick, charcoal on canvas, 210 x 178 cm. © ADAGP, Paris, 2024
ART
Dora Jeridi
Prix Pierre Cardin
The Prix Pierre Cardin 2024 – Académie des beaux-arts was awarded to Dora Jeridi, a graduate of the Beaux-Arts de Paris, Djamel Tatah's studio. Her work is characterised by the development of a fiery, energetic and expressive practice that reflects a strong desire for the material and a greedy, sometimes voracious, relationship with painting. For the artist, painting is a vehicle for transcending the discursive and intelligible logic of language. The pictorial medium appears to be the most tangible expression of a reality in excess that overflows the textual and allows to show what cannot be said.
Académie des beaux-arts
Prix de sculpture François Masson
Image: Raphaël Zarka, Paving Space, Espai d’Art Contemporani de Castelló (Eacc), Spain, 2017. Skater: Adrian Fuentes. Photo: Stan Laurentiu.
ART
Raphaël Zarka
Prix de sculpture François Masson
Raphaël Zarka is the recipient of the Prix de sculpture François Masson – Académie des beaux-arts. Raphaël Zarka is a singular artist whose work encompasses sculpture, drawing, photography or still, video. He is also known and recognised as one of the rare historians of skateboarding, a discipline he has practiced since a very young age. When he was at art school, Raphaël Zarka measured the extent to which skateboarding influenced his perception of forms and materials. He understands that his interest for typologies of forms and surface techniques meets his preoccupations as a skater who freely exploits spaces and the declivities of cities to tie them together in a course.
About the Prix de sculpture François Masson
Équerre d’argent 2024
Image: Devaux & Devaux Architectes (DDA), Réhabilitation du Téléphérique du Salève, Monnetier-Mornex, Haute-Savoie, France, 2023. © DDA Devaux & Devaux Architectes
ARCHITECTURE
Réhabilitation du Téléphérique du Salève by DDA
Équerre d’argent
The Équerre d’argent, an architecture prize celebrating rehabilitation organised each year by the publications Le Moniteur and AMC, was awarded to the rehabilitation of the upper station of the Salève cable car in Monnetier-Mornex, Haute-Savoie by Devaux & Devaux Architectes (DDA). The jury praised an "admirable work, of great difficulty": "we remain amazed by the power of the achievement and the quality of the project management that made such a result possible". The work was made all the more delicate by the fact that the building in question, built in 1932 by Swiss architect Maurice Braillard, has been on the list of historic monuments since 2018. However, the site had never really been completed and restoration work carried out in the 1980s was accused of having tarnished the building.
Drawing Lab Project 2025
Image: Elika Hedayat, Les femmes d'Haroum N04, 2024. Oil on canvas, 97 x 146 cm (37.83 x 56.94 in). Courtesy Galerie Aline Vidal
ART
Elika Hedayat and Valentina Ulisse
Drawing Lab Project
The Drawing Lab team has announced the winning duo of their call for projects on the themeLe dessin en mouvement(s) [Drawing in motion]. Artist Elika Hedayat and curator Valentina Ulisse have been awarded the production grant for their Haroum project. Their exhibition will be presented at the Drawing Lab in Paris in October 2025. The title of the project, ‘Haroum’, refers to a "utopian city where women live in equality and peace with the environment."
Ammodo Architecture Awards 2024
Image: Yamazaki Kentaro Design Workshop, Long House with an Engawaby, Yachiyo, Chiba, Japan, 2022. © Yamazaki Kentaro Design Workshop ; Lacol, La Balma, Barcelona, Spain, 2021. © Milena Villalba
ARCHITECTURE
Long House with an Engawa
La Balma
Social Architecture Award
Ammodo Architecture has revealed the first recipients of its inaugural Ammodo Architecture Awards, an annual recognition dedicated to advancing socially and ecologically conscious architecture worldwide. In the Social Architecture category, two projects were honored for their commitment to socially and ecologically responsible design. Recognized works include Long House with an Engawa by Yamazaki Kentaro Design Workshop in Japan, a healthcare facility fostering intergenerational connection and La Balma by Lacol in Spain, which redefines affordable and collective housing.
About the Ammodo Architecture Awards
Han Nefkens Foundation - Loop Barcelona
Video Art Production Grant 2024
Image: Natasha Tontey, Primate Visions: Macaque Macabre, Museum MACAN, Jakarta, 2024-2025. Commissioned by Audemars Piguet Contemporary. Courtesy of the artist and Audemars Piguet.
ART
Natasha Tontey
Video Art Production Grant
Artist Natasha Tontey (1989, Indonesia) is the recipient of the Han Nefkens Foundation - Loop Barcelona Video Art Production Grant 2024. Natasha Tontey is a Minahasan artist based in between Jakarta and Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Her artistic practice predominantly explores the fictional accounts of the history and myths surrounding ‘manufactured fear.’ In her practice, she observes any possibilities of other futures that are projected not from the perspective of major and established institutions, but a subtle and personal struggle of the outcasted entities and beings.
About the Han Nefkens Foundation - Loop Barcelona Video Art Production Grant
