PARIS — The artist duo Brognon Rollin has won the 2026 Marcel Duchamp Prize, France's most prestigious contemporary art award, for an installation built from thousands of sobriety tokens — small objects handed out by support groups to mark milestones in abstinence — turning private struggles with addiction into a meditation on time, perseverance and what it means to keep going.
Illustration: A dim gallery with carnival machines holding small tokens — an artist's impression of the prize-winning installation, not a photograph of the work.
What Happened
The award was announced on Thursday, October 22, 2026, by Claude Bonnin, president of ADIAF, the association that founded the prize, at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, according to a press release published October 23, 2026. The winners are David Brognon, born in Belgium in 1978, and Stéphanie Rollin, born in Luxembourg in 1980, who met at the Mudam museum in Luxembourg and have worked together since 2006.
Their winning installation is titled "5,376 Years, 1,892 Months, 1,110 Days, 1,201 Hours" — a title that adds together the periods inscribed on the sobriety tokens the artists have been collecting since 2022. Such tokens are awarded by support groups to mark milestones in abstinence, and each one bears witness to what the press release calls "fragile victories and efforts sustained day after day."
In the dimly lit exhibition space, four carnival machines hold the tokens in a precarious balance: their mechanisms keep them suspended, and they never fall. Three wall lights are connected to a woman named Kate, who has been sober for eight years and remotely adjusts the lights' intensity according to what she is experiencing. The installation, in other words, brings the rhythm of an actual human life into the gallery — the waiting, the uncertainty, and the determination to continue.
Stéphanie Rollin summed up the duo's approach in a single sentence quoted in the announcement: "Our primary material is the human being." Bonnin, announcing the award, emphasised the work's connection to Marcel Duchamp's approach and what he described as its two intertwined dimensions: fully conceptual and profoundly human.
Background
The Marcel Duchamp Prize was established in 2000 by ADIAF, the Association pour la diffusion internationale de l'art français, and has been organised in partnership with the Centre Pompidou from the outset. It recognises four artists or artist collectives each year, with a total endowment of 90,000 euros, including 35,000 euros for the winner, and extends support through international exhibitions and residencies, notably with Villa Albertine in the United States and the Manufacture de Sèvres.
Past winners include Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Tatiana Trouvé, Clément Cogitore, Tarik Kiswanson, Gaëlle Choisne and Xie Lei. This year's jury was chaired by Xavier Rey, director of the Musée national d'art moderne, and included Kader Attia, the prize's 2016 winner. While the Centre Pompidou's historic Beaubourg building undergoes renovation, the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris is hosting the exhibitions of shortlisted artists and the winner's announcement from 2025 through 2029.
The other artists shortlisted for the 2026 prize were Joël Andrianomearisoa, who explores the materiality of emotions through textiles, architecture and writing; Laura Henno, whose photographs and films follow, among others, people living clandestinely in the Comoros and Mayotte; and Josèfa Ntjam, who combines archives, African mythologies and science fiction to shift narratives of origin. The exhibition of all four shortlisted artists, curated by Odile Burluraux and Nicolas Liucci-Goutnikov, is on view at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris through February 7, 2027, with free admission.
Illustration: Visitors in a modern museum hall viewing contemporary installations — an artist's impression, not a photograph of the exhibition.
Why It Matters
The award matters first because of what it says about where contemporary art is heading. Brognon Rollin's practice is attentive to waiting, confinement and people living on the margins of society, and their works take shape through encounters with individual lives and circumstances. The connection to Duchamp is unusually direct: the readymade — an ordinary, pre-existing object relocated into an art context — is the foundation of conceptual art, and here the readymade is an object already heavy with human meaning. A sobriety token leaves its original use behind and carries the trace of an intimate struggle into public space.
The work also arrives at a moment when the art world is asking hard questions about what counts as creation. The prize's longtime partner, Artprice, used the occasion to extend the discussion into writing and artificial intelligence, asking how to define the act of creation when human thought gives meaning to a form not made entirely by the creator's own hand. In Brognon Rollin's installation, the selection and arrangement of objects make the traces of human lives accessible; in the AI-assisted book discussed alongside the prize, a spoken voice and personal archives sustain a dialogue whose writing was entrusted to a machine. In both cases, the audience is invited to look beyond the production process and consider what is being conveyed — and who answers for it.
There is also a social dimension that sets this prize apart from a purely aesthetic honour. Addiction and recovery are usually discussed in statistics: relapse rates, treatment places, public spending. The installation insists on a different unit of measurement — a day endured, a token earned, a light adjusted by a woman eight years sober. By giving those private milestones a public, monumental form, the work argues that recovery is not only a medical story but a human one, worthy of the same attention the art world gives to any other subject.
Finally, the timing matters. The award comes during a Paris Art Week disrupted by the early closure of Art Basel Paris on Friday, October 23, at 7 p.m., ahead of its public weekend, because of planned demonstrations and related security concerns. In a week when the commercial side of the art world was forced to shut its doors early, the prize ceremony at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris stood as one of the week's major events — a reminder that the art world's centre of gravity is not only the fair booth but the museum, the jury and the idea.
What Happens Next
The exhibition of the four shortlisted artists remains open at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris through February 7, 2027, giving visitors months to encounter the installation and the other finalists' work. Admission is free, and the museum's partnership with the Centre Pompidou and ADIAF means the show will be followed by the international exhibitions and residencies that form part of the prize's support for the winner.
For Brognon Rollin, the prize brings the kind of visibility that reshapes a career: museum attention, collector interest, and invitations that follow a Duchamp Prize win. For the broader art world, the discussion the prize has opened — about the readymade, about human material, and about creation in the age of AI — will continue well beyond Paris Art Week. A token can count the days of abstinence; it cannot, on its own, contain all the effort they required. That gap, between what can be counted and what can only be felt, is exactly what the winning work asks its audience to sit with.
Illustration: A Paris street during art week, with visitors outside a museum — an artist's impression, not a photograph of the event.
Sponsored: explore today's featured sponsored offers
FAQ
Who won the 2026 Marcel Duchamp Prize?
The artist duo Brognon Rollin — David Brognon, born in Belgium in 1978, and Stéphanie Rollin, born in Luxembourg in 1980 — who have worked together since 2006 after meeting at the Mudam museum in Luxembourg.
What is the winning work?
An installation titled "5,376 Years, 1,892 Months, 1,110 Days, 1,201 Hours," built from sobriety tokens collected since 2022. Four carnival machines hold the tokens in precarious balance, and three wall lights are adjusted remotely by a woman named Kate, who has been sober for eight years.
When and where was the prize announced?
On Thursday, October 22, 2026, by ADIAF president Claude Bonnin at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, where the shortlisted artists' exhibition runs through February 7, 2027, with free admission.
What is the Marcel Duchamp Prize worth?
The prize has a total endowment of 90,000 euros, including 35,000 euros for the winner, plus international exhibitions and residencies. It was established in 2000 by ADIAF in partnership with the Centre Pompidou.
Who else was shortlisted in 2026?
Joël Andrianomearisoa, Laura Henno and Josèfa Ntjam. The jury was chaired by Xavier Rey, director of the Musée national d'art moderne, and included 2016 winner Kader Attia.
Sources
- Artprice by Artmarket, "Artprice and its CEO, thierry Ehrmann, congratulate Brognon Rollin, winners of the 2026 Marcel Duchamp Prize," press release, October 23, 2026 (via Actusnews Wire, October 24, 2026).
- Artprice by Artmarket, 2026 Marcel Duchamp Prize announcement coverage, October 24, 2026.
Comments
Post a Comment