AWARE prize winners Rose Lowder and Louisa Babari

AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions held its seventh annual contemporary art prize ceremony on March 8, 2023, to award its two prizes to women artists linked to the French art scene. The winner of the Outstanding Merit prize, given to an artist with a career spanning over 40 years, is Rose Lowder. The winner of the Nouveau Regard prize, awarded to a mid-career artist, is Louisa Babari. The other nominees to the Nouveau Regard prize were Cheryl Ann Bolden, Barbara Breitenfellner and Bouchra Khalili.

Outstanding Merit prize
The Outstanding Merit prize was created in 2016 to highlight the longevity and quality of the careers of women artists. Rose Lowder, winner of the Outstanding Merit prize 2023, will receive a 10,000 EUR grant thanks to support from the French Ministry of Culture. In partnership with Manuella Éditions, AWARE will publish a book-length interview with the artist, documenting her contribution to the history of art of the 20th and 21st century and allowing her to reflect on her career in her own words.

Rose Lowder practices experimental cinema based in her research on visual perception, composing the image in the camera through recording successive images and interweaving the resulting frames. Rose Lowder was born in Peru and has lived and worked in the UK and in France. She has been based in Avignon since 1977.

Nouveau Regard prize
The Nouveau Regard prize was created in 2022 to benefit mid-career artists, currently less supported by existing prizes and the art world in general. Louisa Babari, the 2023 Nouveau Regard prizewinner, will benefit from a residency in New York in 2024 organised in partnership with the Villa Albertine and the A.I.R. Gallery, supported by CHANEL. Once she returns to France, AWARE will contact French art centres to co-produce a solo exhibition of the artist’s work in France. As part of its partnership with AWARE, the Cnap (Centre national des arts plastiques) will acquire one or more of Louisa Babari’s works.

Louisa Babari has a developed a multimedia practice that encompasses video, sound installations, collages, and sculpture. Louisa Babari grew up in Algeria, the USSR and France, and now lives and works in Paris.

The selection
The nominees to the respective prizes were chosen by four professionals connected to the French art scene: Kuralai Abdukhalikova, Théo-Mario Coppola, Danilo Lovisi and Salma Mochtari. The prizewinners were a selected by a jury composed of international art world personalities: Alexia Fabre, Camille Morineau (co-founder and Director of Research at AWARE), Joanna Mytkowska (Director of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw), Hélène Nguyen-Ban (founder and CEO of Docent), Émilie Renard (Director of Bétonsalon - centre d’art et de recherche), Béatrice Salmon (Director of the Cnap, Centre national des arts plastiques) and Claire Tancons (Curator and researcher).

About AWARE
AWARE is a non-profit association dedicated to shining a light on women and non-binary artists of the 19th and 20th century. Since its creation in 2014, AWARE has worked to make thousands of artists visible by creating many different types of innovative content, all available for free in both English and French on the AWARE website, as well as through organising and participating in academic and non-academic events (symposiums, conferences, curation of art fairs). Recently, AWARE has developed several international projects such as Women Artists in Japan: 19th–21st century, The Origin of Others: Rewriting History in the Americas, 19th century–Today, Tracing a Decade: Women Artists of the 1960s focused on African women artists, and curating sections of the Frieze Masters art fair in 2022 and 2023. AWARE also supports contemporary artists by awarding two contemporary art prizes every year.