The 15th SAM Prize for Contemporary Art has been awarded to Alice Anderson. She was chosen from among the seven artists nominated for this year’s Prix SAM deliberations of the 2023 Scientific Committee, comprising Sandra Hegedüs, Gaël Charbau, Emmanuelle de l’Écôtais, Sébastien Gokalp, Jean-Hubert Martin, Colette Barbier, Dirk Snauwaert and Marine Van Schoonbeek. Alice Anderson was presented by Sandra Hegedüs.

Thanks to the SAM Prize, Anderson will travel to Brazil to carry out a new project entitled SOLIDARITY WITH NONHUMANS, TOGETHER IN THE ERA DE L’ANTHROPOCÈNE, which will be exhibited in Paris in 2025.

« Ailton Krenak, an indigenous chief from the state of Minas Gerais, descended from the Krenak ethnic group in Brazil inspired this project of collective performances with the public after I read his book « Idées pour retarder la fin du monde » (published by dehors). I recognized my practice in his thinking and my thinking in his struggles. Since then, I’ve been longing to go to Brazil to meet him and the indigenous people of his community, and thus answer the call to his readers to « Defend a few ideas to delay the beginning of the end of the world… ». Alice Anderson

The six other artists in the running for the Prix SAM 2023, 15th edition, each with a project for a foreign country, were :

Juliette Minchin (Mexico)

Marie-Claire Messouma Manlanbien (Australia/Tasmania)

Sandra Muteteri Heremans (Russia)

Chloé Quenum (Nigeria/Benin)

Adrianna Wallis (Japan)

Maja Bajević (Israel/Sarajevo)

Born in 1972, Alice Anderson is a Franco-British artist. For the past fifteen years, Anderson has been performing alone and collectively, dancing with objects and spaces. From these intuitive « Technological Dances » give rise to immense paintings and sculptures: memorizations of the objects and places of our Anthropocene era. The performer poetically reactivates the strong link between the human and the nonhuman by beginning her performances by observing technological objects. Anderson does not paint with a brush, but directly with an object coated in paint. These computers, drones, batteries, virtual reality masks (etc…) will then take hold of the artist the artist, drawing her into a dance of hyperventilated breaths, guiding her into a trance into another dimension of environment and matter.

In Anderson’s practice, technological objects memorized on canvas by painting are then assembled and crystallized by a responsible copper wire (not copper). This material symbolizes neural and technological connections to become sculptures. Erected as « Spiritual Machines », these recycled machines embody an ecological ecological consciousness. Named after the book « The Age of the Spiritual Machines » by artificial intelligence pioneer Ray Kurzweil, published in 1999.

Created in 2009, the SAM Prize for Contemporary Art is awarded every year in December after deliberation by the scientific committee, to a French artist in the plastic and visual arts, presenting a project for a foreign country (outside Europe and North America). The prize, worth 20,000 euros, includes a solo exhibition in Paris in the months following the trip, a visibility that accelerates the artist’s reputation among art world professionals and the general public.

The Prix SAM sends prizewinning artists around the world so that they can confront other territories and carry out a project outside their cultural perimeter. The aim is to raise questions, and to present discoveries and research in lesser-known territory.

The selection criteria for the SAM Prize for Contemporary Art are :

– be a French artist or have been living in France for at least 2 years

– propose a project for a country outside Europe and North America

– be over 25 years of age

Since its creation, the SAM Prize for Contemporary Art has enabled fourteen artists to complete their project in the country of their choice:

Zineb Sedira in Algeria,

Laurent Pernot in Brazil

Ivan Argote in Colombia,

Angelika Markul in Chernobyl, Ukraine

Bouchra Khalili in Algeria,

Louidgi Beltrame in Peru,

Mel O’Callaghan in Borneo in Malaysia,

Massinissa Selmani in Algeria and New Caledonia,

Louis-Cyprien Rials in Uganda,

Kevin Rouillard in Mexico,

Laura Henno in Comoros,

Aïcha Snoussi in Benin, Tunis, Paris and Marseille,

Dalila Dalléas Bouzar in Algeria.

Julian Charrière, the 2022 winner, is working on a project in Java, Indonesia to be exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo in 2024.

Founded in 2009 by Sandra Hegedüs, SAM Art Projects is a non-profit organization organization that fosters artistic exchange between North and South, East and West. SAM Art Projects provides financial and human support to contemporary artists based in France or in countries outside the major art markets. Production support and visibility for artists are at the heart commitment of SAM Art Projects, whose activities revolve around an annual prize. In 2018, Sandra Hegedüs received the Prix Montblanc des Arts et de la Culture 2018 for France, in recognition of her commitment on the occasion of SAM Art Projects’ 10th anniversary. Sandra Hegedüs is vice-president of the Friends of the Palais de Tokyo and president of the Villa Arson.

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