ART COLOGNE 2026

One of the pioneering figures of Spanish sculpture since the late 1960s, Lootz moved to Madrid in 1965 and has since developed a distinctive body of work spanning sculpture, installation, drawing, and other media, investigating the physical and symbolic dimensions of materials and the ways in which they shape our understanding of the world.

The presentation brings together a selection of works from the 1980s to the present, including Vasija de arena (Sand Vessel, 1986), works from the Paños (Cloths) series of the 1990s, and a selection of Lenguas (Tongues), a recurring motif in Lootz’s practice since the 1980s. Across these works, the artist transforms humble and unstable mate rials — including sand, felt, paraffin and wax — into forms that occupy an ambiguous space between object, body, landscape and language. Her drawings, presented throughout the exterior walls of the booth, extend this investigation into a more intimate and associative register. Drawing constitutes a parallel form of writing that accompanies her research and, at times, functions as a diary.

For Lootz, matter is never simply a medium for representation. It behaves, changes, and generates meaning. The tongue becomes at once a bodily organ and a linguistic structure; fabric records processes of pressure, folding, and transformation; and sand continuously shifts be tween containment and dispersal. Across sculpture and drawing alike, Lootz approaches artistic practice as a way of thinking through materials, language, and their capacity to reveal connections between the visible and the sayable.

The showcase follows a significant moment in the international recognition of Lootz’s work: in 2025–26, Kunsthaus Baselland presented the artist’s first comprehensive solo exhibition in a German-speaking country, in collaboration with the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, following her major retrospective there in 2024.

Lootz has also had solo exhibitions at institutions including the Palacio de Cristal, Reina Sofía, Madrid (2002); Taba calera, Madrid (2016); CGAC, Santiago de Compostela (2016–17); and Fundació Suñol, Barcelona (2023–24), and has realized major permanent public commissions, including NO-MA-DE-JA-DO for Expo ‘92 in Seville and The Talking Ear on the Ebro River for Expo Zaragoza (2008). She received Spain’s National Award for Plastic Arts in 1994, and her work is held in the collections of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, MACBA Barcelona, and Fundación Juan March, among others.

—

Eva Lootz (b. 1940, Vienna) is an Austrian sculptor who has lived and worked in Madrid since the 1960s. Trained in Vienna in Fine Arts, Musicology, Philosophy, and Film and Television Direction, she began exhibiting in Madrid in 1973 and has since become one of the cen tral figures in Spanish sculpture of the past five decades. Her practice spans sculpture, installation, drawing, printmaking, photography, video, and sound, centered on the relationship between matter and language. Early works used organic, ephemeral materials such as cotton, soil, and paraffin-coated seeds; later work turned to the extraction and processing of raw materials, examining the marks these industries leave on landscape and language alike. Ecology, territory, gender, and time are recurring concerns throughout her work, which she has described as a “continuous art” — immersive and intersensory rather than object-bound.

Lootz has had solo exhibitions at institutions including the Palacio de Cristal, Reina Sofía, Madrid (2002); Tabacalera, Madrid (2016); CGAC, Santiago de Compostela (2016–17); Museo Patio Herreriano and Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid (2020); and Fundació Suñol, Barcelona (2023–24), as well as galleries in Amsterdam, London, New York, Sweden, and Denmark. She has also realized major permanent public commissions, including NO-MA-DE-JA-DO for Expo ‘92 in Seville, La mano de Lineo in Bohuslän, Sweden (1996), En dless Flow in Silkeborg, Denmark (2002), and The Talking Ear on the Ebro River for Expo Zaragoza (2008). She received Spain’s National Award for Plastic Arts in 1994, among other honors, and her work is held in the collections of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, MACBA Barcelona, Museo Patio Herreriano, Artium Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo, and Fundación Juan March, among others.