FRANCE AWARDS FIRST ART PRIZE HONORING FEMALE ARTISTS

In January, French culture minister Audrey Azoulay awarded the inaugural AWARE prize, established by the Archives of Women Artists, Research, and Exhibitions to recognize the significant contributions made by female contemporary artists, to Laetitia Badaut Haussmann and Judit Reign, the Art Newspaper’s Anna Sansom reports.

“Invisible for too long, put in the background, ignored, women artists must find in the twenty-first century their place in all the artistic disciplines,” Azoulay said in a statement. At the awards ceremony, she said the art world needs “to deconstruct and reconstruct our outlook on the history of art and to recall the role of women and bring it the critical, intellectual attention that it deserves.”

AWARE president and director of the Monnaie de Paris, Camille Morineau, founded the prize after she observed that women are underrepresented in global arts prizes, representing only 20 to 30 percent of artists selected for high-profile awards such as France’s Prix Marcel Duchamp and Britain’s Turner Prize.

Morineau invited four art professionals to nominate two women artists, an emerging artist and an artist whose career began twenty years ago. An exhibition of works by the eight nominees will be on display at the culture ministry until March 31.