Chinese-born, Paris-based painter Xie Lei has won this year’s Marcel Duchamp Prize. Established in 2000 by the Association for the International Diffusion of French Art and organized in partnership with Paris’s Centre Pompidou, the annual EUR 35,000 (USD 40,695) award is dedicated to supporting innovative individuals in the French art scene. 

Born in 1983 in China’s Anhui province, Xie creates ethereal figurative paintings that contemplate fragmented memories, dreamscapes, and the human condition. His spectral tableaux often feature a vibrant color palette, reflecting the artist’s ethos of embodying a “poetics of the strange.”

Xie, who has exhibited in various institutions across Europe and Asia, is also the recipient of the Fondation Colas Prize (2016) and the Alphonse Cellier Prize (2012). 

All finalists’ works are currently on view at the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris until February 22, 2026, and each of the shortlisted nominees—which include Bianca Bondi, Eva Nielsen, and Lionel Sabatté—will receive EUR 10,000 (USD 11,640). 

Yuqian Fan is an editorial intern at AAP.