Chanel Awards $108,000 Prizes to Artists Dalton Paula, Ho Tzu Nyen, and More

Ten artists from a wide range of disciplines, from opera to fine art to video game development, have been named among the second group of winners of the Chanel Next Prize, which comes with a no-strings-attached €100,000 ($108,000) purse and two years of mentorship from the brand’s global partners. 

The prize, which is awarded every two years, was first established in 2021, though its roots go back a century, according to the global head of arts and culture at the French fashion house, Yana Peel.

“It’s really a prize that’s focused on the new and the next,” Peel told ARTnews. “Gabrielle Chanel wanted to be part of the future. I love the audacity and the curiosity of giving artists time and space and resources.”

There are no terms attached to the prize. Rather, according to Peel, the artists are meant to continue redefining their respective disciplines.

The winners include Berlin-based interdisciplinary artist Tolia Astakhishvili; artist and filmmaker Kantemir Balagov; Oona Doherty a Belfast-born, Marseille-based choreographer who works at the forefront of contemporary dance; game designer Sam Eng, from New York; Ho Tzu Nyen, the artist who represented Singapore at the 2011 Venice Biennale; San Diego–based visual artist and director Fox Maxy; Camae Ayewa (aka Moor Mother), an American musician, poet and visual artist; Brazilian portraitist Dalton Paula; Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir; and Virginia-born opera singer and curator Davóne Tines.

These artists’ practices are dissimilar, but Peel said that is entirely by design. “In the spirit of dialogue there is no hierarchy to their disciplines at all. Chanel has never created that kind of separation and that allows the cohort to have these amazing cross-disciplinary transversal conversations.“

The winners were chosen last year at the Royal College of Art by a jury that included venerable figures in the arts including actress Tilda Swinton, artist Cao Fei, and curators Legacy Russell and Hans Ulrich Obrist.