Franco-Chinese painter Xie Lei has been awarded the prestigious 2025 Marcel Duchamp Prize, with the jury recognizing his intense and captivating pictorial work. The announcement was made yesterday evening, crowning an artist whose paintings explore the shifting boundaries between figuration and enigma.
For twenty-five years, the Marcel Duchamp Prize has distinguished artists whose work embodies the vitality and diversity of the contemporary French art scene. This year's recognition goes to Xie Lei, a Franco-Chinese painter who has been based in Paris for nearly two decades. His paintings, situated between figuration and mystery, explore the moving zones of perception and emotion.
Born in 1983 in Huainan, China, Xie Lei was trained at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing before continuing his studies at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris. He has been living and working in the French capital since 2006. The artist is represented by several prestigious galleries including Semiose in Paris, Sies + Höke in Düsseldorf, Meessen in Brussels, and François Ghebaly in Los Angeles and New York.
Xie Lei has developed a singular pictorial language where human, animal, and plant figures dissolve into dense and incandescent matter. His canvases, traversed by a sense of familiar strangeness, draw inspiration from both literature and cinema, translating a vision of the world that is both poetic and unsettling. The artist's work creates an atmosphere of mysterious beauty that captures viewers' attention and imagination.
His work has been exhibited in numerous prestigious institutions including the Louis Vuitton Foundation, MO.CO in Montpellier, CAPC in Bordeaux, Villa Noailles in Hyères, Collection Lambert in Avignon, MAC VAL in Vitry-sur-Seine, Langen Foundation in Neuss, the National Museum of Immigration History, and the Ricard Corporate Foundation. Xie Lei was also a resident at Casa de Velázquez from 2020 to 2021, followed by a residency at Villa Medici in 2024.
The 2025 Marcel Duchamp Prize jury was composed of distinguished art world figures including Xavier Rey, Claude Bonnin, Akemi Shiraha, Laurent Dumas, Fabrice Hergott, Ann Veronica Janssens, Yan Pei-Ming, Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Manuel Segade, and Aurélie Voltz. They selected Xie Lei from among the finalists Bianca Bondi, Eva Nielsen, and Lionel Sabaté, following presentations by rapporteurs Jérôme Sans, Marianne Derrien, David Quéré, and Julia Marchand.
"Xie Lei's paintings are a particularly accomplished expression of what this beginning of the 21st century represents," stated Fabrice Hergott, director of the Museum of Modern Art of Paris, where the exhibition of the four artists continues until February 22, 2026. "They offer a representation that is both concise and captivating of the vertigo and disarray of our era."
Xavier Rey, director of the Centre Pompidou, praised the artist's expertise, saying, "The artist demonstrates great knowledge of painting history and a thoroughly contemporary application: he is a worthy representative of today's French scene." Rey emphasized how Xie Lei's work bridges historical painting traditions with contemporary sensibilities.
Created in 2000 by ADIAF in partnership with the Centre Pompidou, the Marcel Duchamp Prize rewards an artist from the French scene annually. The prize comes with €90,000 in total funding, of which €35,000 is awarded to the laureate, and includes a program of residencies and exhibitions abroad. This substantial support helps artists develop their careers and gain international recognition.
Presented for the first time at the Museum of Modern Art of Paris due to ongoing construction work at the Centre Pompidou, this 25th edition celebrates a body of work that, between clairvoyance and mystery, captures the melancholy and vertigo of our time. The exhibition showcases how contemporary artists are responding to the complexities and uncertainties of the modern world through their creative vision and technical mastery.
