The 2026 prize includes an individual exhibition at Museo Reina Sofía and a €30,000 payment. The Ministry of Culture has awarded it to Pilar Albarracín, whose career has focused on Spain's familiar cultural images. Her performances and installations examine gender and folklore while probing tradition and collective identity.
Albarracín's work spans performance, photography, video, installation and live action. She often puts her own body at the centre, using it to question stereotypes around "lo español" and to focus on Andalusian women and traditions still present in daily life across parts of southern Spain.
The jury called her career one of the most singular and recognisable in Spanish contemporary art, citing her sustained critique of cultural images and power structures. EFE reported that the Ministry's official decision recognised a body of work examining gender and power through its focus on tradition, folklore and collective identity.
Albarracín uses irony, theatre and social criticism to show how images of Spanishness are made and repeated. She examines the visual codes of España cañí through references to flamenco and regional customs. Her feminist view keeps them from being treated as unquestioned heritage.
Her work has also reached major institutions abroad. The Seville-born artist has shown at MoMA PS1 in New York, the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and Kiasma in Helsinki. The jury said her international presence brought her work into wider debates about contemporary art and Spanish culture.
Recent solo exhibitions include 'Take a Knife and Open My Heart' at American University Museum in Washington D. C. in 2023 and 'Acciones peregrinas' at CGAC in Santiago de Compostela in 2021. France has been an impressive setting for her work: she presented 'No apagues mi fuego, déjame arder' in Paris in 2020 and 'Anatomía Flamenca' in 2017.
In Spain, her projects have included 'Que me quiten lo bailao' at Tabacalera in Madrid in 2018 and 'Ritos de fiesta y sangre' at CAC Málaga in 2016.
Her work has travelled to Latin America and Asia. Examples include her 2019 solo presentation at MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum in Thailand and 'Recuerdos de España' at Instituto Cervantes de Tokio in 2010. Her work is held in collections including Museo Reina Sofía, Es Baluard, CAAC Sevilla, Artium, MUSAC, CA2M and DA2, as well as institutions in France. A related report on Madrid's cultural and social field offers another view of how public identity can become a subject of attention.
The previous edition went to Fina Miralles. Albarracín now joins a list that includes Teresa Lanceta, Rogelio López Cuenca, Dora García, José María Yturralde, Àngels Ribé, Ángel Bados, Ángela de la Cruz and Juan Hidalgo.
The prize recognises an artist who refuses to separate aesthetics from social experience. Albarracín's work asks who gets represented, how an image is made and which power relations it keeps in place.
