The artist duo Brognon Rollin has taken home the 2026 Marcel Duchamp Prize, one of France's most important contemporary art awards, announced on 22 October at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris. Their winning installation, titled '5,376 Years, 1,892 Months, 1,110 Days, 1,201 Hours', is built from sobriety tokens — small medallions handed out by support groups to people marking milestones in recovery from alcohol or addiction.
David Brognon, born in Belgium in 1978, and Stéphanie Rollin, born in Luxembourg in 1980, have been collecting the tokens since 2022. In the exhibition, they sit inside four carnival machines whose mechanisms keep them in a deliberately precarious balance — they never quite fall. Three wall lights are linked to Kate, a woman eight years sober, who adjusts their brightness remotely depending on how she is feeling. The result turns lived time into something you can almost feel in the room.
The prize, run by ADIAF with the Centre Pompidou since 2000, carries a €90,000 endowment with €35,000 to the winner, and exists to promote the French scene internationally. Because the Centre Pompidou is closed for renovation, the shortlisted exhibition and the ceremony are hosted at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris from 2025 to 2029. Past winners include big names such as Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and Tatiana Trouvé, and 2016 laureate Kader Attia sat on this year's jury.
The announcement landed during a bumpy Paris Art Week — Art Basel Paris closed early on the Friday evening ahead of planned demonstrations — but the prize show carried on regardless. Alongside Brognon Rollin, the exhibition features Joël Andrianomearisoa's textile works, Laura Henno's films on clandestine communities in the Comoros and Mayotte, and Josèfa Ntjam's blend of archives, African mythologies and science fiction.
For travellers in Paris this winter, the practical draw is simple: the shortlist exhibition is free to visit and runs until 7 February 2027. It's a rare chance to see the Duchamp Prize in its temporary home at the Musée d'Art Moderne, right by the Seine near the Alma bridge, without spending a cent. Pair it with the permanent modern collections next door and you have one of the city's best-value art afternoons. Source: Laotian Times.
