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Katerina Thomadaki (for her work with Maria Klonaris) and Laura Huertas Millán winners of the 2024 AWARE prizes.
AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions held its 8th annual contemporary art prize ceremony on March 7, 2024 for its two prizes awarded 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 Katerina Thomadaki (for her work with Maria Klonaris). The winner of the Nouveau Regard prize, awarded to a mid-career artist, is Laura Huertas Millán. The other artists nominated for the Nouveau Regard prize were Malala Andrialavidrazana, Basma al-Sharif and Charwei Tsai.
Outstanding Merit prize
The Outstanding Merit prize was created in 2016 to highlight the longevity and quality of the careers of women artists. Katerina Thomadaki, winner of the Outstanding Merit prize 2024 for her work with Maria Klonaris, 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.
Katerina Thomadaki and Maria Klonaris, an artistic duo from Athens, Greece, lived and worked in France from 1975. Together, they developed an experimental body of work at the crossroads of art, theatre, film, and aesthetic theory. Their oeuvre, free from the shackles of style or conventional discourse, redefined gender and its representation through the concept of “corporal cinema”.
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. Laura Huertas Millán, the 2024 Nouveau Regard prizewinner, will benefit from a residency in New York in 2025 organised in partnership with the Villa Albertine and the A.I.R. Gallery, supported by CHANEL. Once she returns to France, AWARE will contact members of DCA (Association française de développement des centres d’art contemporain) to co-produce a solo exhibition of the artist’s work in a contemporary art centre in France. As part of its partnership with AWARE, the Cnap (Centre national des arts plastiques) will acquire one or more of Laura Huertas Millán’s works.
Laura Huertas Millán is an artist, filmmaker, and writer from Colombia, based in France and Belgium. Her works challenge and dismantle oppressive narratives through experimental fiction-making: sci-fi, speculative fiction, and lo-fi fantasy with a sharp criticism of anthropology.
The selection
The nominees to the respective prizes were chosen by four professionals connected to the French art scene: Simona Dvorák, Antoine Idier, Noelia Portela and Olivier Zeitoun. The prize winners were selected by a jury issued from the international art world: Béatrice Salmon (director of the Cnap, Centre national des arts plastiques), Camille Morineau (co-founder and Director of AWARE), Bénédicte Alliot (executive Director of the Cité internationale des arts), Marc Bembekoff (Director of La Galerie—centre d’art contemporain d’intérêt national de Noisy-Le-Sec), Florence Ostende (art historian and curator at the Barbican Art Gallery) and Marie-Hélène Pereira (senior Curator of Performative Practices at Haus der Kulturen der Welt).
About AWARE
AWARE is a non-profit association dedicated to shining a light on women and non-binary artists of the 18th, 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, The Flow of History: Southeast Asian Women Artists, Tracing a Decade: Women Artists of the 1960s in Africa, and curating sections of the Frieze Masters art fair in 2022 and 2023. AWARE also supports contemporary artists through its programming at Villa Vassilieff.
