Prize winners Soun-Gui Kim and Laura Gozlan

AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research & Exhibitions, which joined the Centre Pompidou – Musée national d’Art moderne in January 2026, announced the winners of its tenth annual contemporary art prizes on May 12, 2026. These prizes are awarded to women, trans, and non-binary artists connected to the French art scene. The winner of the Outstanding Merit prize, granted to an artist with a career spanning over 40 years, is Soun-Gui Kim. The winner of the Nouveau Regard prize, awarded to a mid-career artist, is Laura Gozlan. The other artists nominated for the Nouveau Regard prize were C.B. Evans, Bettina Samson, and Saodat Ismailova. 

Outstanding Merit prize
The Outstanding Merit prize is awarded to an artist with a career spanning forty years or more who has not yet had a major retrospective exhibition in France. As a prizewinner, Soun Gui Kim’s works will be acquired by the Centre Pompidou—Musée national d'Art moderne. 

Soun-Gui Kim is a multimedia artist, poet, and teacher of South Korean origin who has lived in France since 1971. Initially trained in painting, she moved away from it in the 1970s through her "Situations plastiques", participatory, outdoor performances aiming to take art out of museums to confront the elements. In the 1980s, she deepened her interest in video art, collaborating with figures like Nam June Paik and John Cage, and nourishing her work with both Eastern and Western philosophies. Her practice explores emptiness, impermanenece, and advocates for non-productive art.

Nouveau Regard prize
The Nouveau Regard prize is awarded to a mid-career artist with a strong connection to the French scene who has been working for over 20 years. Laura Gozlan, the 2026 Nouveau Regard prize winner, will see her works acquired by the Centre Pompidou—Musée national d'Art moderne.

Laura Gozlan lives and works in Paris, having trained in scenography at the University of Art and Design Helsinki before graduating from ENSAD and Le Fresnoy. Informed by multiple references, her films stage abrupt situations and ambiguous characters, oscillating between desire and dissatisfaction within contrasting environments. Through a series of microfictions in which she performs, Laura Gozlan documents the transformations of "MuM", an androgynous figure navigating different ages and altered states of consciousness. Marked by an aesthetics of prosthetics and senescence, her works blur the boundaries of the post-human body. 

The selection
The nominees for both prizes were chosen by four curators: Lucie Camous and Amélie Deschamps (duo), Dilda Ramazan, Vincent Enjalbert, and Juliette Desorgues. The prize winners were selected by a jury headed by Jeanne Brun (Deputy Director in charge of Collections, Centre Pompidou—Musée national d'art moderne). The jury included: Camille Morineau (Curator, Co-founder and Head of AWARE, Centre Pompidou), Philippe Bettinelli (Curator at the New Media Department, Centre Pompidou), Myriam Minhidou (Artist, 2022 Nouveau Regard winner), Victorine Grataloup (Director of Triangle-Astérides, Co-president of DCA), Salimata Diop (Curator), and Sébastien Faucon (Director and Curator at LAM, Villeneuve d'Ascq). 

The 2026 AWARE prizes benefit from the support of CHANEL Culture Fund. The award ceremony, held at the Ministry of Culture, is supported by Maison Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin. 

About AWARE
Co-founded in 2014, AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research & Exhibitions was a non-profit association until 2026, when it joined the Centre Pompidou—Musée national d'art moderne. AWARE works to make women and non-binary artists visible by producing free content for its trilingual website (French/English/Japanese). This unique resource features texts by over 500 researchers, curators, and feminist art historians worldwide, dedicated to artists in the visual arts, design and architecture. AWARE also organises international symposiums, roundtables and seminars, and edits its own publications to widely share research on women and gender studies.