AWARE prizes winners Tsuneko Taniuchi and Gabrielle Manglou

AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research & Exhibitions held its ninth annual contemporary art prize ceremony on March 6, 2025 for its two prizes awarded to women artists* linked to the French art scene. The winner of the Outstanding Merit prize, granted to an artist with a career spanning over 40 years, is Tsuneko Taniuchi. The winner of the Nouveau Regard prize, awarded to a mid-career artist, is Gabrielle Manglou. The other artists nominated for the Nouveau Regard prize were EVA & ADELE, Kristina Solomoukha and Ti’iwan Couchili.

Outstanding Merit prize
The Outstanding Merit prize was created in 2016 to highlight the longevity and quality of the careers of women artists. Tsuneko Taniuchi, winner of the Outstanding Merit prize 2025, will receive a EUR 10,000 grant. 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 centuries and allowing her to reflect on her career in her own words.

Tsuneko Taniuchi, born in 1946 in Hyogo, has lived and worked in Paris since 1987. In 1995, she developed the concept of “Micro-events,” a concept that redefines the relationship between the artist, the artwork, and the audience. These participatory works encourage individual engagement, blurring the boundaries between art and reality while questioning social and gender norms. By creating intimate experiences, she subverts codes to disrupt traditions and question the multiplicity of identities.

Nouveau Regard prize
The Nouveau Regard prize was created in 2022 for mid-career artists, currently less supported by existing prizes and the art world in general. Gabrielle Manglou, the 2025 Nouveau Regard prize winner, will benefit from a residency in New York in 2026 organised in partnership with the Villa Albertine and the A.I.R. Gallery. 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 Gabrielle Manglou’s works.

Gabrielle Manglou is a multidisciplinary artist, primarily working in the field of installation. Originally from La Réunion, she currently lives in Locmiquélic, Brittany. Her work explores themes such as human relationships, collective histories, and material remnants.

The selection
The nominees for both prizes were chosen by four professionals connected to the French art scene: Horya Makhlouf, Rose K. Bideaux, Oksana Karpovets and Paul-Aimé William. The prize winners were selected by a jury composed of figures from the international art world: Béatrice Salmon (director of the Cnap, Centre national des arts plastiques), Camille Morineau (co-founder and Director of AWARE), Esther Ferrer (artist, winner of the AWARE Outstanding Merit Prize in 2016), Sandra Patron (director of the Capc, musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux), Lourdes Mendez Perez (feminist anthropologist, Universidad del País Vasco), Gaëtane Verna (Executive Director, Wexner Center for the Arts, Colombus, Ohio) and Chương-Đài Võ (curator and researcher).

The 2025 AWARE Prizes are supported by the CHANEL Culture Fund and the French Ministry of Culture.

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 centuries. Since its creation in 2014, AWARE has worked to make thousands of artists visible by creating many different types of innovative content, all available freely 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). In 11 years, the AWARE website has become a unique online resource, for professionals in the art world as well as the general public. Recently, AWARE has developed several international projects, such as Living with Two Brains: Women in New Media Art, 1960s–1990s, Reilluminating the Age of Enlightenment: Women Artists of the 18th Century, and the creation of NEST: Network for Empowerment, Solidarity, and Transregionality, a transnational alliance of like-minded non-profit organizations (NGOs) aimed at forging alternative methodologies and challenging dominant narratives. AWARE has also formed a partnership with the Louvre Museum, which will lead to the publication of biographies and research articles in 2025. AWARE also supports contemporary artists through its public programme at Villa Vassilieff and by awarding two contemporary art prizes every year.

*Woman is understood as a person who, regardless of their gender assigned at birth, identifies as such. Since 2023, the AWARE awards have been open to intersex, non-binary and post-gender artists.