Francesc Torres has won the Velázquez Prize for Plastic Arts 2024. The jury has highlighted “his artistic career with interdisciplinary work and a precursor of conceptual art that encompasses various media such as sculpture, installation, video art and photography.” She succeeds Marisa González in the award, awarded last year. The recognition, granted by the Ministry of Culture, is worth 100,000 euros.
His work, as indicated by the committee, “is characterized by its profound reflection on the social and political context” and, throughout his career, “he has addressed essential topics in our time such as war, identity, historical memory and the impact of the media on the perception of the world, exploring the intersections between art and politics.”
He has also noted that he is “recognized for his commitment to teaching,” having been a professor in various academic institutions and “contributing to the development of new generations of artists.” The jury has stated that their creations “are part of important collections in museum institutions internationally.”
Francesc Torres (Barcelona, 1948) worked as an apprentice in his father’s printing workshop and trained as a graphic artist. He later continued his studies at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris in 1967 and became an assistant to the artist Piotr Kowalski. During this period, he began his industrial work, which followed the formal and material strategies of minimalism. Starting in May 1968, he redirected his activities and worked on posters for the workers and students movement.
In 1970 he returned to Barcelona to do his mandatory military service, an experience that he faced as a source of first-hand information about military behavior and that would be useful for his later work. Shortly afterward he moved to Chicago, and later to New York, where he lived until 2001.
In the 70s and 80s he exhibited in the United States in institutions such as the Illinois Center (Chicago), the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York) and the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art. In 1991 the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid) presented him dedicated the retrospective exhibition Lat the head of the dragon and exhibited in various Spanish institutions and galleries such as the Institut Valencià d’Art Modern (IVAM) or the Fundació Antoni Tàpies (Barcelona).
Starting in 2001, he moved to Barcelona and, since then, his work has been seen in exhibitions at the Espai d’Art Contemporani de Castelló (EACC), Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA); Artium Centro-Basque Museum of Contemporary Art or Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. Throughout his career, Francesc Torres has received several awards and recognitions that support his contribution to the world of contemporary art.
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