Art Antwerp

Art Antwerp is delighted to announce that the 2025 Art Antwerp Acquisition Prize has been awarded to Laure Prouvost for her work Sweaty Cuddle (2025), presented at the booth of Galerie Nathalie Obadia.

Created in oil on mirror, Sweaty Cuddle (135 × 80 cm) embodies Prouvost’s distinctive blend of intimacy, playfulness, and layered visual language. Its reflective surface invites viewers to enter the work, blurring the boundaries between image and reality, presence and perception.

This acquisition underscores the fair’s commitment to supporting outstanding contemporary artistic practices and enriching public collections with innovative works by leading international artists.

Sweaty Cuddle will join the collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA) and was on view during the fair at Galerie Nathalie Obadia’s booth.

The jury for the Art Antwerp Acquisition Prize 2025 included Joost Vanhaerents (private collector, Vanhaerents Art Collection), Christian Mosar (Artistic Director of Konschthal Esch), Lisa van Gerven (Curator at KMSKA), and Annelien De Troij (Curator at KMSKA).

Jury’s Statement:

“Choosing always means letting something go, especially when there is so much compelling work to consider—from young talents to emerging artists and established names. 

The shortlist was long, but the jury took the time to look at each of the preselected works individually. 

For the KMSKA, it was especially important that a genuine dialogue could emerge between the new work and the museum’s existing collection. We are therefore delighted that, thanks to Art Antwerp and Private Bank Delen, we can add a new work to the KMSKA’s collection.

The selected piece is made from mirror material—a mirror that not only reflects, but also creates perspective, acting as a window onto society. The fact that the artist is a woman, who lived in Antwerp for many years before moving to Brussels, makes this choice all the more resonant.

For the KMSKA, it is essential to give contemporary artists a meaningful place within the collection. They are like companions: they help us see the past, the present, and the future differently. They add new layers of meaning and build on a rich artistic tradition.

The final choice fell on ‘Sweaty Cuddle’, by the French artist Laure Prouvost, represented by Galerie Nathalie Obadia in Brussels and Paris. Her work often explores themes such as miscommunication, memory, identity, language, imagination, and the dissolving of boundaries between reality and fiction.

Within her broader oeuvre, Prouvost investigates confusion, dreams, and a playful, associative logic. The Mirror Paintings fit perfectly within this framework: by incorporating mirrors, the boundary between image and viewer, between interior and reflection, fiction and reality, becomes beautifully blurred.

Prouvost alludes to the classic “vista” of the old masters and the trompe l’oeil tradition, from Jan Van Eyck and Velázquez to Pistoletto. But in this work, she replaced the beauty of an idealised landscape with a confrontational mirror featuring a painted faded, vanishing flower.

Laure Prouvost is already an established artist. She received the Max Mara Prize for Women in 2011 and the Turner Prize in 2013. In 2018, her work was presented at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, and in 2019 she represented France at the Venice Biennale. Since then, her work has continued to appear in major exhibitions worldwide, including solo presentations at Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen (2021), the De Pont Museum in Tilburg (2024), and ACCA in Melbourne (2024). 

Looking ahead, she will receive a major solo exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris in 2026—further testimony to her international significance.

Various parties have made  efforts to achieve this acquisition, partly with the support of Delen Private Bank. 

The KMSKA is delighted with this collaboration.  Together with Art Antwerp, we have succeeded in adding work by a contemporary artist to the museum collection.

The jury wishes the KMSKA every success with this acquisition, and we look forward to seeing the context in which this work will be presented in the future.”