Cristina Iglesias

Cristina Iglesias was born in San Sebastian, Spain, in 1956. She lives and works in Torrelodones, Madrid. She began studying Chemical Sciences, but opted for a career in art in 1978. She studied ceramics and drawing in Barcelona and, in 1980, moved to London to study sculpture at Chelsea College of Art, where she met other artists such as Anish Kapoor and Juan Muñoz, whom she married.

Iglesias established herself as a young sculptor in the mid-1980s and is now internationally renowned for her large-format immersive sculptures. Referencing architecture, literature and local cultures, these sculptures articulate very different materials - such as cement, iron, aluminum, glass, tapestry or alabaster - creating suspended pavilions, braided panels, passageways and labyrinths. The notions of interior/exterior, organic/artificial, material/virtual converge, while the sensory experience and space itself acquire multiple variations.

He began exhibiting in 1984, in Spain and Portugal. He has exhibited individually at the Guggenheim New York (1997); Guggenheim Bilbao (1999); Serralves Museum, Porto (2002); Whitechapel Gallery, London; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2003); Ludwig Museum, Cologne (2006); Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro, Milan (2009); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Casa Franças, Rio de Janeiro (2013); BOZAR, Brussels (2014); Musée de Grenoble (2016) and Centro Botín, Santander (2018), among other leading museums. He has participated in numerous group shows in Europe, the Americas and Asia. He represented Spain at the Venice Biennale in 1986 and 1993 and at the Sydney Biennale in 2012. Two public projects stand out: the doors of the new wing of the Prado Museum, Madrid (2007) and Tres Aguas - a Project for Toledo (2014). He was awarded the Spanish National Prize for the Visual Arts (2000) and the Royal Academy Architecture Prize, London (2020), along with several others. His work is represented in several museums, including: Guggenheim New York and Bilbao; Tate Gallery, London, Museo Nacional Reina Sofía Madrid, MACBA, Barcelona and Centre Pompidou, Paris.

Sofia Nunes