PARIS.- Chosen by a selection committee comprised of 11 collectors from the ADIAF, the names of the four artists nominated for the 9th edition of the Marcel Duchamp Prize were announced at Artcurial by Gilles Fuchs, President of the ADIAF, Association for the International Diffusion of French art.

Artists nominated this year:

Saâdane Afif, born in 1970 – sculpture, installations
Damien Deroubaix, born in 1972- painting
Nicolas Moulin, born in 1970 - vidéo
Philippe Perrot, born in 1967 - painting

As every year, an exhibition of the nominated artists will take place at the FIAC on the invitation of the Paris Contemporary Art Fair’s organizers. Chosen by an international jury, the winner - to be announced on the 24th of October next -will be invited by the Centre Pompidou, National Museum of Modern Art, for a one-person show during the summer of 2010. The ADIAF will award the winning artist with a financial endowment of 35 000 euros.

The 2009 edition is to be marked by an outstanding event: The French Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Universal Exhibition has decided to invite the 2009 Marcel Duchamp Prize artists to China as representatives of French contemporary art . The exhibition will be organized from the 1st to the 30th of June 2010 in accordance with the procedures to be confirmed and with the support of Sanofi-Avent is, a partner of the Marcel Duchamp Prize since 2008.

Gilles Fuchs states that “Since its creation, the ADIAF’s ambition has been to defend French art and contribute to the international promotion of our country’s artistic scene. I am delighted by this invitation which will allow Chinese collectors and visitors to get to know and better understand the French artistic sensibility through some of its most innovative and contemporary forms”.

For his part, José Frèches, President of the ‘Compagnie Française pour l ’Exposition de Shanghai ’ specifies that “The Pavilion will be the tangible demonstration of France’s capacity for innovation, in particular in the domain of cultural promotion. Alongside works loaned by the Musée d’Orsay and the Musée Guimet , the Marcel Duchamp Prize will illustrate to what extent contemporary French art is a real laboratory of creation”.

Winners of the Marcel Duchamp Prize:
Thomas Hirschhorn (2000-2001), Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster (2002), Mathieu Mercier (2003), Carole Benzaken (2004), Claude Closky (2005), Philippe Mayaux (2006), Tatiana Trouvé (2007), Laurent Grasso (2008).