Toby Ziegler – Prizewinner of the Jean-François Prat Prize

The 14th Jean-François Prat Prize was awarded to the artist Toby ZIEGLER, Wednesday June 11th, 2025 at the Bredin Prat Foundation for Contemporary Art – 53 quai d ́Orsay, Paris.

His work was presented to the jury by Marc DONNADIEU, independent curator and art critic.

The Jury was chaired by Chris DERCON, executive director of Fondation CARTIER pour l’art contemporain.

Toby ZIEGLER, born in 1972 in London, is winner of the Jean-François Prat 2025 prize. The two other artists presented are Syaiful Aulia GARIBALDI and Lisa JO.

Toby ZIEGLER’s innovative process interfaces sensitive painting and digital technology, superposing them in interlocking abstract compositions in which the attentive viewer strives in vain to work out what’s going on, but ends up feeling a muted emotion due to their very efforts to interpret. At a time when the spectre of Artificial Intelligence is raising radical questions about life, we felt that his work affords an interesting angle of approach.

Chris DERCON expressed what interested him in this special edition of the Jean-François Prat Prize focusing on abstract art:

« If there is less and less abstract painting than there was 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60 years ago, it’s a sign that something has happened. Today, we see something completely different from what we know as abstract painting. Toby Ziegler, like the other two artists in the 2025 Prize, are on the verge, but not at the limit of abstraction. I dare to declare the notion of abstract painting obsolete.».