CRISTINA IGLESIAS

Iglesias monumental public commissions, such as the doors to the Museo del Prado and Forgotten Streams at Bloomberg’s London headquarters, have established her as a transformative force in contemporary sculpture.

Early Years

Born in San Sebastián in 1956, Iglesias initially studied chemical sciences at the University of the Basque Country before turning to ceramics and drawing in Barcelona. In 1980, she moved to London to study sculpture at Chelsea School of Art, where she met fellow artists including her late husband, Juan Muñoz, and Anish Kapoor. This interdisciplinary background in science and art fostered a spirit of experimentation that continues to shape her practice. Iglesias currently lives and works in Madrid.

Cristina Iglesias Artworks

Cristina Iglesias’s contemporary art practice is defined by her creation of sculptural environments that merge architecture, nature, and literature. Her works often invite viewers to enter, walk through, or gather within spaces that evoke both the organic and the constructed.

Architectural Interventions and Sculptural Environments

From the 1980s, Iglesias developed a distinctive sculptural vocabulary using materials such as iron, glass, alabaster, resin, and cement. Early works explored quasi-architectural forms—walls, pavilions, ceilings, and canopies—that created ambiguous thresholds between interior and exterior, intimacy and monumentality.

1990s: Nature, Water, and Venice

In the 1990s, Iglesias began casting natural textures, such as bamboo and eucalyptus, into architectural forms, producing works like the ‘Vegetation Rooms’ series. Water became central to her installations, culminating in major public commissions such as Deep Fountain (Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp), Tres Aguas (Toledo), and Forgotten Streams (London). These works use flowing water, cast vegetation, and architectural elements to create immersive, sensory experiences that explore memory, history, and the passage of time.

In 1993, Iglesias returned to the Venice Biennale as Spain’s representative, exhibiting alongside Antoni Tàpies. Two years later, she was named Professor of Sculpture at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich. Her first outdoor installation came in 1997, set on the remote Norwegian island of Moskenes. That same year, she embarked on her initial architectural project—a collaboration commissioned by Belgian architects Paul Robbrecht and Hilde Daem. This partnership would eventually lead to her celebrated public artwork, Deep Fountain (1997–2006).

Sculptural Intervention and Immersion

In the 21st century, Iglesias shifted her approach from crafting architectural forms within interior spaces to designing entire rooms as immersive environments. Her public projects now activate both urban and remote locations, transforming them into communal gathering points that subtly alter the rhythms of daily life.

A notable example is Estancias Sumergidas (2010), where Iglesias installed three translucent pavilions of latticed concrete—each shaped from letter-like patterns—on the sea floor of a protected site in Baja California. Water remains a central element in her practice, as seen in ambitious commissions like Tres Aguas (2014) in Toledo, Forgotten Streams (2017) at Bloomberg’s London headquarters, and Hondalea (2020—2021), a dramatic intervention in the hollowed-out lighthouse on Santa Clara Island, Spain.

Through these works, Iglesias challenges conventional boundaries between constructed and natural environments, often drawing on historical narratives. Her recent projects, such as Landscape and Memory (2022) in New York’s Madison Square Park, reveal the hidden waterways, roots, and histories beneath urban landscapes. These explorations of subterranean worlds and organic growth are recurring motifs in her sculptures, reflecting a fascination with the slow processes of geology and the enduring vitality of nature within the built environment.

Select Public Commissions

• Pavilion for the 21st Century, Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco, Monaco (2001)
• Vegetation Room, Fondation Beyeler, Basel (2003)
• Deep Fountain, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp (2006)
• Ceremonial Doors, Museo del Prado, Madrid (2007)
• Portón Principal, Museo del Prado, Madrid (2007)
• Estancias Sumergidas, Sea of Cortez, Baja California, Mexico (2010)
• Forgotten Streams, Bloomberg Headquarters, London (2017)
• Hondalea, Santa Clara Island, San Sebastián (2021)
• Landscape and Memory, Madison Square Park, New York (2022)

Select Awards and Accolades

• National Award for Plastic Arts, Spain (1999)
• Berliner Kunstpreis (2012)
• Tambor del Oro, Donostia/San Sebastián (2016)
• Medalla de Oro al Mérito en las Bellas Artes, Spain (2016)
• Premio Nacional de Escultura, Spain (2019)
• Royal Academy Architecture Prize (2020)

Select Collections

• Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
• Tate, London
• Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid
• Centre Pompidou, Paris
• Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin
• Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
• Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao
• Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (MUSAC)
• Kunsthalle Bern

Exhibitions

Cristina Iglesias has been the subject of both solo and group exhibitions at leading institutions worldwide. Below is a selection of key exhibitions.

Solo Exhibitions

• Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland (1991)
• Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands (1994)
• Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA (1998)
• Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland (2003)
• Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany (2006)
• Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain (2013)
• Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey, Mexico (2016)
• Museo de Grenoble, France (2016)
• Fondation Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland (2003)
• Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2013)
• Centro Botín, Santander, Spain (2018)

Group Exhibitions

• Spanish Pavilion, Venice Biennale, Italy (1986, 1993)
• 18th Sydney Biennale, Australia (1990)
• Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, USA (2000)
• Exposición Universal, Hannover, Germany (2000)
• Happiness, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2002)
• Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2005)
• SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA (2006)
• Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2010)
• Folkestone Triennial, UK (2011)
• Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition, London, UK (2020)
• Royal Academy Architecture Prize, London, UK (2020)

Cristina Iglesias FAQs

Ocula | 2025