The artist Pedro G. Romero, National Prize for Visual Arts 2024

The artist Pedro G. Romero has been awarded the National Prize for Fine Arts proposed by the jury that met today. The prize, awarded by the Ministry of Culture, is worth 30,000 euros.

The jury has highlighted the artist “for a consolidated career whose artistic, intellectual and material work covers multiple fields of meaning and apparently opposite formats (sculpture, cinema, archival productions, performances, etc.), integrating curatorial and research practices into their artistic work.”

Furthermore, the jury has pointed out that, in his work, “Pedro G. Romero manages to attend to, rescue and reinsert popular culture in its most ungovernable expressions into our public sphere, genealogically investigating the aesthetic and symbolic manifestations of those communities that were denied or not recognized as having a space for representation. “Their methodologies have opened new fields in artistic practices beyond institutional criticism.”

The jury also considered “the highlights of his career last year 2023, with reference exhibitions such as ‘popular’ (October 2023 – April 2024), IVAM, Valencia, ‘A de Archipiélago’ (June – September 2023), in Es Baluard, Palma de Mallorca or film pieces such as ‘What goes below’ (2023-2024) MACBA, Barcelona”.

Also notable among all the artist’s projects is ‘ARCHIVO FX’, a documentary collection and “a thinking machine” based on images of iconoclasm in Spain between 1845 and 1945, linking them to the avant-garde.

“Questions of aesthetics, knowledge and violence have always interested Pedro G. Romero and have materialized in a multitude of works and exhibitions. His other long-term project is ‘Máquina PH’, which has managed to expand the field of art by introducing the powers of gesture, body, language and music, of flamenco with totally new keys. The performative turn in our country cannot be understood without his work,” adds Cultura in a statement.

Finally, the jury expressed that Romero “works to transform knowledge structures, forms of presence and action in the world, in the communitywith others, with many others, generally excluded from the hegemonic social form. Likewise, it has incorporated a feminist sensibility from a thinking of the popular and the invisible.”

The award recognized in its last edition Teresa Lancetjoining a long list of winners, including Rogelio López Cuenca, Dora García, José María Yturralde, Àngels Ribé, Ángel Bados, Ángela de la Cruz and Juan Hidalgo, among others.