AwardDecember 17, 2021
Tania Bruguera, Premio Velázquez for Fine Arts 2021
In an official communiqué, the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sports and the Premio Velazquez for Fine Arts jury announced the 2021 awardee, the Cuban artist Tania Bruguera.
The jury justified the decision "for her rigorous performative activism, especially attentive to the socio-political contextual dynamics. It has valued her revision of the modalities of behavioral art that involve a dynamic of participation and questioning of the traditional ways of behaving in the public space".
The Ministry of Culture and Sports has granted this award since 2002 to recognize the oeuvre of a creator in fine arts in any of its manifestations to Spanish creators or those from the States that make up the Ibero-American Community of Nations. It is endowed with 100,000 euros.
Tania Bruguera (Havana, Cuba, 1968) was trained in Havana and the Art Institute of Chicago. Throughout her career, she has participated in international art events such as documenta in Kassel, and the biennials of Venice, São Paulo, Shanghai, and Havana, among others, as well as in museums, galleries, and art centers such as Tate Modern (London), Santa Monica Museum of Art; Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum (Netherlands), Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam (Havana) and New Museum (New York). She has been recognized with international awards such as the Guggenheim Fellowship (USA), the Prince Claus Award (Netherlands), and the Meadows Prize (USA), among others.
About the award, Tania Bruguera said on her social media: "I just received a call from the Minister of Culture of Spain to inform me that I have been awarded this year's Premio Velazquez for Fine Arts. This is an award for my work and my artistic career and an award for independent Cuban art. This award adds to a long list of achievements of independent artists from #Cuba, ratifying that this movement defamed, mistreated, and abandoned by Cuban institutions has obtained more achievements and has shown more recognition than #MINCULT achieves."
The jury was chaired by María Dolores Jiménez-Blanco Carrillo de Albornoz, general director of Fine Arts and formed by members María Soledad Sevilla Portillo, winner of the Premio Velázquez for Fine Arts corresponding to the year 2020; Consuelo Vallina González, artist, president of the AC Union and the AAVA, at the proposal of the Union of Contemporary Artists of Spain (AC Union); Imma Prieto Carrillo, director of Es Baluard-Museu d'Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma, at the proposal of the Association of Contemporary Art Directors (ADACE); Fernando Castro Flórez, professor of Aesthetics and Theory of the Arts at the UAM, at the proposal of the Institute of Contemporary Art (IAC); Lars Jakob Bang Larsen, director of Art Hub Copenhagen, appointed by the Ministry of Culture and Sport and João Ribas, executive director of Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT), Los Angeles, appointed by the Ministry of Culture and Sports.
The jury justified the decision "for her rigorous performative activism, especially attentive to the socio-political contextual dynamics. It has valued her revision of the modalities of behavioral art that involve a dynamic of participation and questioning of the traditional ways of behaving in the public space".
The Ministry of Culture and Sports has granted this award since 2002 to recognize the oeuvre of a creator in fine arts in any of its manifestations to Spanish creators or those from the States that make up the Ibero-American Community of Nations. It is endowed with 100,000 euros.
Tania Bruguera (Havana, Cuba, 1968) was trained in Havana and the Art Institute of Chicago. Throughout her career, she has participated in international art events such as documenta in Kassel, and the biennials of Venice, São Paulo, Shanghai, and Havana, among others, as well as in museums, galleries, and art centers such as Tate Modern (London), Santa Monica Museum of Art; Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum (Netherlands), Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam (Havana) and New Museum (New York). She has been recognized with international awards such as the Guggenheim Fellowship (USA), the Prince Claus Award (Netherlands), and the Meadows Prize (USA), among others.
About the award, Tania Bruguera said on her social media: "I just received a call from the Minister of Culture of Spain to inform me that I have been awarded this year's Premio Velazquez for Fine Arts. This is an award for my work and my artistic career and an award for independent Cuban art. This award adds to a long list of achievements of independent artists from #Cuba, ratifying that this movement defamed, mistreated, and abandoned by Cuban institutions has obtained more achievements and has shown more recognition than #MINCULT achieves."
The jury was chaired by María Dolores Jiménez-Blanco Carrillo de Albornoz, general director of Fine Arts and formed by members María Soledad Sevilla Portillo, winner of the Premio Velázquez for Fine Arts corresponding to the year 2020; Consuelo Vallina González, artist, president of the AC Union and the AAVA, at the proposal of the Union of Contemporary Artists of Spain (AC Union); Imma Prieto Carrillo, director of Es Baluard-Museu d'Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma, at the proposal of the Association of Contemporary Art Directors (ADACE); Fernando Castro Flórez, professor of Aesthetics and Theory of the Arts at the UAM, at the proposal of the Institute of Contemporary Art (IAC); Lars Jakob Bang Larsen, director of Art Hub Copenhagen, appointed by the Ministry of Culture and Sport and João Ribas, executive director of Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT), Los Angeles, appointed by the Ministry of Culture and Sports.
