Colombian artist Daniel Otero Torres wins French art prize

The Colombian artist Daniel Otero Torres, who lives and works in Paris, has been named the winner of this year’s CPGA-Etant donnés Prize, awarded by two French art bodies to promote France’s art scene to international audiences at Art Basel in Miami Beach, among other venues. The award is presented by the French Professional Committee of Art Galleries (CPGA) and Villa Albertine, the cultural residency programme in New York created by France’s Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, to artists either from or working in France.The work that won Otero Torres the prize is Los abrazos del viento (2023), two large canvases that show the branches and roots of a mangrove forest, with small clay parrots and steel crab sculptures that serve as symbols for larger themes, according to Alex Mor, the founding director of Mor Charpentier, the gallery staging the work.“The mangrove is essential for the balance of nature,” Mor says. Mangrove forests have been rapidly dying off in the past century as a result of agriculture and development, which threaten their biodiversity. Otero Torres included depictions of sprouting mangrove leaves in his work to show that these forests continue to grow despite these obstacles, Mor says. “It’s a message of despair, but also a message of hope—because the leaves show the resilience of nature and that the mangrove struggles but is still there.”The Etant donnés Prize was launched in 2019 and first brought to Art Basel in Miami Beach last year. Its previous winner was the French Caribbean artist Julien Creuzet, who was subsequently announced as chosen to represent France at the 2024 Venice Biennale. One canvas from Los abrazos del viento was purchased by the Swiss mega-collector Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza’s foundation and the other by a private collection, both for between $25,000 and $30,000.