There are prizes and awards and then there are some prizes and awards which are way above the rest. Now, we can talk about the Oscar awards in the film industry as well as the Nobel Prize which co-incidentally got awarded recently to many brilliant people out there. Now, we have one such award in the Art Industry as well which is known as France’s biggest award related to Art Industry. The award we are talking about is the Prix Marcel Duchamp which has been given to Éric Baudelaire for this year.
This award is given out by Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Association pour la Diffusion Internationale de l’Art Français’s common facilitation to any artist working in France and it is continuing since 2001. Apart from the award, the artist gets handsome prize money too which is €35,000 or US$38,600. This award has been given to people who have had an illustrious career after winning on the international circuit.
As far as this year’s award winner is concerned, it is only the second time in the history of the awards that a filmmaker has won it. However, last year’s award was also given to a filmmaker which means that the precedent was set in 2018 to give it to people from the film-making industry as well. Among the nominees for this year’s award were Katinka Bock, Marguerite Humeau, and Ida Tursic & Wilfried Mille.
Now, you should note that this award is not necessarily given out to people who are born in France as it only requires artists to work in France. Because this year’s winner, Baudelaire, was born in Salt Lake City, Utah but he is currently working in France’s capital Paris. He once gave an interview where he said that “In my mind, I make no distinction whatsoever between experimental film, video art, narrative, and documentary,” revealing his process of film-making.
