The French-Armenian artist Melik Ohanian won the the 15th edition of the Marcel Duchamp Prize last weekend during the 2015 FIAC art fair.

Ohanian’s extensive body of work includes photography, sculpture, video and installations. Melik Ohanian was also featured in Armenity, the group show for the Armenian Pavilion of the 56th Venice Biennale. “We wished to celebrate the coherence of the aim of the artist who, for 20 years, has developed a personal oeuvre based on a particular attention to the relationships between science, astrophysics and visual arts,” said Bernard Blistène, the Director of the Centre Pompidou who chaired the Jury appointed to select the winner. At the 2015 edition of FIAC, where he was represented by the Paris-based Galerie Chantal Crousel, Ohanian presented a series of 7 photographs animated and mounted in light boxes that showcased the one second long change from the solid state to the liquid state of the Cesium 133 element, for a duration of about one minute.

Established in 2000 by the ADIAF (Association pour la Diffusion Internationale de l'Art Français) in partnership with the Centre Pompidou, National Museum of Modern Art, and FIAC, the Marcel Duchamp Prize is an annual prize, intended to promote emerging visual artists working in France on an international level.

Cecilia Musmeci © Modemonline

Picture courtesy of FIAC / Melik Ohanian.