Yesterday, the prestigious CHANEL Next Prize was officially awarded to ten contemporary artists of vastly different disciplines. The winners are fine artists, video game designers, and opera singers. They hail from six countries across four continents, including the UK, the U.S., Ireland, Brazil, Singapore, and Georgia.
Each of the winners will receive €100,000 in funding, allowing them to fully realize their most ambitious creative projects. Winners will also access a two-year mentorship and networking program facilitated by CHANEL’s cultural partners throughout the world, including the Royal College of Art in London.
Courtesy of Moor Mother and CHANEL.
CHANEL Culture Fund Awards Artists Redefining Their Disciplines
The biennial award comes from the CHANEL Culture Fund, CHANEL’s global initiative to accelerate the ideas that advance culture, extending the House’s century-long legacy of cultural patronage. Jurors of this edition include actress Tilda Swinton, artist Cao Fei, and curators Legacy Russell and Hans Ulrich Obrist. Yana Peel, the Global Head of Arts & Culture at CHANEL, said, “The CHANEL Next Prize was founded to amplify the work of artists who are making a difference and redefining their disciplines. The second edition of the prize will celebrate and support ten such artists. Each is a catalyst and a pioneer. Each is disrupting established practice across a multitude of cultural fields… Watching their creative journeys will be thrilling.”
Courtesy of Oona Doherty and CHANEL.
The Ten Winners of the CHANEL Next Prize
The ten winners are truly at the forefront of their respective fields. Dalton Paula paints intimate portraits of forgotten Brazilian figures; Fox Maxy is an Indigenous American filmmaker whose work threads the line between horror and documentary. Sam Eng is a self-taught game developer who has independently launched games on the Nintendo Switch, and Anna Thorvaldsdottir is one of the most distinctive composers in contemporary classical music, having been commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, and Carnegie Hall. Moor Mother is a musician who fuses free jazz, electronic, and classical genres while also teaching at the University of Southern California.
Courtesy of Tolia Astakhishvili and CHANEL.
Ho Tzu Nyen represented Singapore at the 54th edition of the Venice Biennale, with work that unites animation, video, performance, and installation. Oona Doherty is at the forefront of contemporary choreography, with performances that present real-life situations and relatable characters. Tolia Astakhishvili is a Berlin and Tbilisi-based interdisciplinary artist who creates large-scale architectural interventions that combine video, sound, archival footage, and found material. Davóne Tines is a singer and curator who unites opera, popular anthems, and spiritual and gospel music; he makes his Metropolitan Opera debut in New York next month. Kantemir Balagov is a Russian-born filmmaker whose first feature film, Closeness, won the Fipresci Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2017.
