The winner of the Michel Nessim Boukris Prize was announced on 9 February 2023 through a press release from the French Artists’ Foundation. The winner of the 2023 edition is the artist Isabelle Giovacchini.
Working with the photographic medium through the prism of experimentation, Isabelle Giovacchini has been developing her practice for over fifteen years. A graduate of the National School of Photography in Arles, the artist focuses her attention on the material and on "aberration", a central notion found in the effects produced by the images she transforms.
The prize is issued by the Fondation des Artistes, a body created by the State in 1976 to support French practitioners both in the teaching they receive and in the dissemination of their work. The first edition of the prize—planned to reward an artist each year for twenty years thanks to the donation of Dr Sauveur Boukris—was held in 2020 and distinguished Daniel Horowitz. In 2021, two artists were nominated, Capucine Vever and Anne-Sophie Turion, who were selected ex-aequo among the fifty candidates.
Isabelle Giovacchini will be awarded the prize next spring and will receive financial support of €10,000 to produce new works. She was chosen from among the 52 beneficiaries of the foundation’s patronage, selected thanks to a commission established in 2011, the first private production aid scheme in France for which €500,000 is allocated each year.