STANISLAVA KOVALCIKOVA, LAUREATE 2026
Stanislava Kovalcikova wins the 2026 Reiffers Initiatives Prize. She succeeds Anhar Salem (2025), Clédia Fourniau (2024), Ser Serpas (2023), and Pol Taburet (2022).
For the fifth edition of the Reiffers Initiatives Prize, eight emerging artists were selected by the members of the artistic committee, under the direction of Bernard Blistène, curator of the exhibition and Honorary Director of the Musée national d'art moderne–Centre Pompidou.
This group exhibition, entitled “Tinkering with the Unknown,” brings together Khaled Jarada, Louis Le Kim, Stanislava Kovalcikova, Arthur Marie, Eva Helene Pade, Ibrahim Meïté Sikely, Minh Lan Tran, and Manon Wertenbroek.
For the fifth edition of the Reiffers Initiatives Prize, eight emerging artists were selected by the members of the artistic committee, under the direction of Bernard Blistène, curator of the exhibition and Honorary Director of the Musée national d'art moderne–Centre Pompidou.
This group exhibition, entitled “Tinkering with the Unknown,” brings together Khaled Jarada, Louis Le Kim, Stanislava Kovalcikova, Arthur Marie, Eva Helene Pade, Ibrahim Meïté Sikely, Minh Lan Tran, and Manon Wertenbroek.
Stanislava Kovalcikova
Laureate 2026
Stanislava Kovalcikova
is Laureate of the
Reiffers Art Prize 2026.
Stanislava Kovalcikova, was born in 1988 in Slovakia, lives and works in Paris, France, and Düsseldorf, Germany. She graduated with a BFA from the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (Tomma Abts) in 2005 and completed the MFA at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (Peter Doig) in 2018. Poised and libidinal, Kovalcikova’s paintings exist as much through their mythological imagery as in their settings: theatrical environments she stages for their mysteria to play out, featuring her play with light, mirrors, textiles and restrictions of our access to the painting itself. Modernism and contemporary decay moulder together on the surface of her paintings and sculptures, piled with fragmented detritus of today’s life. Working through confrontation, fear, and compulsion with a psychosexual abandon, Kovalcikova reveals painting's tender entrails and retrieves history’s grief as much as our present escapes. Her current and recent solo exhibitions include Kunstverein Freiburg (Freiburg, 2026), Emalin (London, 2024), the Aspen Art Museum (Aspen, 2024), and Antenna Space (Shanghai, 2023). She has also participated in group exhibitions at Emalin (London, 2025), Trautwein Herleth (Berlin, 2025), Crèvecœur (Paris, 2024), and Michael Werner (New York, 2021).
“Among these eight remarkable talents, awarding Stanislava Kovalcikova, originally from Slovakia, this year’s Reiffers Initiatives Prize is a particularly strong statement. It reflects our commitment to supporting artists with singular paths and to highlighting new approaches to painting.”
ORGANISATION
THE ALLOWANCE
The artistic committee rewards a young French artist with an allowance of 10,000 euros
The members of the Reiffers Initiatives artistic committee are invited to vote and reward a young talent from a selection of emerging artists in contemporary art. The winner of the Prize is awarded an allowance of 10,000 euros to finance their artistic production.
THE VISIBILITY
The promotion of his work in a publication around the collective exhibition
The promotion of their work in Numéro Art magazine and the specialized press.
ORDERING AN ARTWORK
The laureate benefits from a commission for a museum work that joins the Reiffers Initiatives collection.
The fund has its own collection of works of art, built up over initiatives and exhibitions. The winner of the Reiffers Initiatives Prize benefits from a work commission that joins the collection, which in the long term will be a real showcase for the young French contemporary scene.