Cristina Iglesias was born in San Sebastián in November 1956.

She currently lives and works in Madrid. Throughout her career, Iglesias has defined a unique sculptural vocabulary, building immersive and experiential environments that reference and unite architecture, literature and culturally site-specific influences.

She studied Chemical Sciences, in the University of the Basque Country (1976-1978) and then after a brief period in Barcelona practising ceramics and drawing, she studied Sculpture at the Chelsea School of Art in London, UK (1980-1982). She started exhibiting immediately after embarking on a career that has resulted in more than 60 solo and group exhibitions in Europe, North America and Japan. She was also granted a Fulbright scholarship to study at Pratt Institute, 1988. In 1995 she was appointed Professor of Sculpture at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich (Germany) and in 1999 she won Spain’s National Visual Arts Prize. In 2012 she won the Grosse Kunstpreis Berlin, In 2015 Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts, Spain, in 2019 the National Graphic Arts Award Spain and 2020 Royal Academy Architecture Prize, London.

Her public commissions include the following:

The Laurel Leaves in Moskenes sculpture in the Lofoten Island; the Centre Convencions Internacional in Barcelona; Deep Fountain, the Leopold de Waelplaats, Antwerp, 2006; the threshold-entrance for the Prado Museum extension, 2007; and the Estancias Sumergidas underwater sculpture in the Cortes Sea near Isla Espiritu Santo, in the Mexican state of Baja California, Tres Aguas en Toledo, Desde lo subterráneo, Centro Arte Botin, Santander, Forgotten Streams, Bloomberg, Londres, Inner Landscape (the Lithosphere, The Roots, The Water) at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2020; Hondalea (Marine Abyss) at Santa Clara Island, San Sebastian, Spain, 2021; Sea Cave Entrance, MICAS, Malta, 2021; Landscape and Memory, Madison Square Park, New York, 2022; The Wet Labyrinth (With Spontaneous Landscape), Royal Academy of the Arts, London, 2020-2022.

Selected Exhibitions

CAPC Musée d ́Art Contemporain, Bordeaux, 1987; Kunsthalle Bern, Bern, 1991; Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 1994; Konrad Fischer Gallery, Düsseldorf, 1994; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York and The Renaissance Society, Chicago, 1997; Palacio Velázquez, MNCARS, Madrid, 1998; Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, 1998; Carré d ́Art, Musée d ́Art Contemporain, Nîmes, 2000; Donal Young Gallery, Chicago, 2000; Fundaçao Serralves, Porto, 2002; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin and Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 2003; Museum Ludwig, Cologne, 2006; Pinacoteca del Estado de São Paulo, Brazil, 2008;Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro, Milan, 2009; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, 2011; Galerie Marian Goodman, Paris 2011; Museo Nacional Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 2013; Casa França, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2013; Tres Aguas, Toledo, 2014; Marian Goodman London 2015; Musée Grenoble 2016; Konrad Fisher Gallery, Berlin 2017; Marian Goodman Gallery NY, and Centro Arte Botin, Santander 2018; Centre Pompidou × West Bund Museum, Shanghai, 2019; Centro Pompidou Málaga, 2020,;Thomas Schütte Foundation, Dusseldorf, and Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid, 2021; Gagosian, Davies Street, London, 2022.

Photo: Jose Luis Lopez Zubiria. Courtesy: Cristina Iglesias.