EXHIBITION of Reiffers Art Prize 2026

Discover the artists

Reiffers Art Center
30, rue des Acacias
75017 Paris

Dates
From April 17 to June 6 2026
Wednesday–Saturday / 1 pm – 7 pm

TINKERING WITH THE UNKNOWN

For its fifth edition, the Reiffers Initiatives Prize presents the work of eight talented artists from the emerging French scene—Khaled Jarada, Louis Le Kim, Stanislava Kovalcikova, Arthur Marie, Eva Helene Pade, Ibrahim Meïté Sikely, Minh Lan Tran, and Manon Wertenbroek—in the exhibition “Tinkering with the Unknown,” staged by Bernard Blistène, Honorary Director of the Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Pompidou.

PARTENAIRE MazarineGroup
SCENOGRAPHIE La Mode en Images

View of the exhibition, “Tinkering with the Unknown”, 2026.

View of the exhibition, “Tinkering with the Unknown” , 2026.

View of the exhibition, “Tinkering with the Unknown”, 2026.

View of the exhibition, “Tinkering with the Unknown” , 2026.

Khaled Jarada, Louis Le Kim, Stanislava Kovalcikova, Arthur Marie, Eva Helene Pade, Ibrahim Meïté Sikely, Minh Lan Tran et Manon Wertenbroek.

These eight artists form a constellation. Do they nonetheless maintain “a secret network of correspondences,” as Walter Benjamin suggests? This network would be the spirit of the times—the world as it presents itself to us in its now inextricable violence. – Bernard Blistène, exhibition curator, Honorary Director of the Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Pompidou

Exhibition view, Reiffers Art Prize, “Tinkering with the unknown”, 2026

TINKERING WITH THE UNKNOWN, EXHIBITION OF THE 2026 REIFFERS ART PRIZE
Minh-Lan Tran – Consciousness Transference II, 2026. 210 x 290 cm. Ink, charcoal and paper on latex.

TINKERING WITH THE UNKNOWN, EXHIBITION OF THE 2026 REIFFERS ART PRIZE
Stanislava Kovalcikova – Nautilius, 2025. 86,5 x 39,5 cm. Oil and foil on MDF.

TINKERING WITH THE UNKNOWN, EXHIBITION OF THE 2026 REIFFERS ART PRIZE
Khaled Jarada — Dry Fire, 2026. 140 x 190 cm. Charcoal on Fabriano paper.

In their respective practices, some searches focus on forms of sensitive storytelling, where inner tensions and states of transition are the main focus. Stanislava, laureate of the 2026 Reiffers Initiatives Prize, stands out for her unique pictorial approach, creating theatrical worlds where mysteries unfold in scenes filled with tension and ambiguity. Khaled Jarada, recipient of the 2026 Honorary Mention, subverts the conventions of drawing through compositions captured in the moment, where figures appear unbalanced, anxious, and out of sync. His work explores this state of transition, drawing on his own experience of exile and displacement.

Taking a transdisciplinary approach, Minh Lan Tran develops a practice that combines painting, writing, and performance to explore the tensions and interactions between language, movement, and matter. Writing plays a central role in this practice: it is not merely conceived as text, but as a form of movement, a true choreography of the body in space.

TINKERING WITH THE UNKNOWN, EXHIBITION OF THE 2026 REIFFERS ART PRIZE
Stanislava Kovalcikova — Tale of the two suns, 2021. 124 x 97, 5 cm. Foil and fried egg on linen.

TINKERING WITH THE UNKNOWN, EXHIBITION OF THE 2026 REIFFERS ART PRIZE
Louis Le Kim – Untitled, 2026. 97 x 145 cm. Oil on canva.

TINKERING WITH THE UNKNOWN, EXHIBITION OF THE 2026 REIFFERS ART PRIZE
Ibrahim Meïté Sikely – La Hagra (The Powerpuff Girls), 2025. 74 x 84 x 5 cm with frame. Oil on canva, with ebony frame.

Other artists draw on powerful visual imagery to question our relationship with the world and with images. Louis Le Kim’s paintings are deeply influenced by his explorations of abandoned and active industrial sites and evoke a strange sense of vertigo, reflecting both our thirst for spectacle and our growing fear of collapse.

Ibrahim Meïté Sikely, meanwhile, blends the visual languages of classical art history iconography, comics, manga, and video games. Using a colorful and vibrant style, he alternates between scenes of tranquility with epic scenes, all set within a fantastic and dreamlike universe. Through portraiture and allegory, his paintings address themes of struggle and justice, trauma and healing.

TINKERING WITH THE UNKNOWN, EXHIBITION OF THE 2026 REIFFERS ART PRIZE Manon Wertenbroek — Wounds of the mind, 2026. 157, 5 x 105 x 9 cm. Wood, metal, paper, fabric, fragments of underwear, acrylic, varnish, leather and pigment.

TINKERING WITH THE UNKNOWN, EXHIBITION OF THE 2026 REIFFERS ART PRIZE Arthur Marie — Untitled, 2026. 80 x 156 cm. Acrylic and oil on linen.

TINKERING WITH THE UNKNOWN, EXHIBITION OF THE 2026 REIFFERS ART PRIZE
Eva Helene Pade — Skygge over mængden (Shadow above the crowd), 2025. 300,4 x 390 cm. Oil on canva.

Finally, several practices address more directly the question of the body, its presence, and its representation. Manon Wertenbroek explores the presence of the body without ever explicitly representing it: through the forms and tension of materials, her works evoke fragmented corporealities and identities, revealing surfaces where the interior and exterior come into friction. In her practice, the skin appears as a central motif, a sensitive membrane that is both protective and permeable.

Eva Helene Pade follows a figurative tradition to explore human relationships through dreamlike and metaphysical scenes, in which the female body—depicted as a source of self-assertion and power—takes center stage. Finally, Arthur Marie draws his iconography from archives of historical photographs, fashion editorials, medical imagery, and ephemeral images from the internet. These references are dissected and deliberately stripped of any cultural or temporal markers, placing his work in a liminal space, as if suspended outside of time.

Through their practices, these artists outline the contours of an emerging generation and actively contribute to the dynamism of the contemporary art scene in France.

EXHIBITION of Reiffers Art Prize 2026

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