Esther Ferrer, pioneer of performance art in Spain, will be the guest artist at Estampa 2026

Esther Ferrer one of the main representatives of performance art in Spain, will be the guest artist of the International Contemporary Art Fair ‘Estampa’, which will celebrate its 34th edition from September 24 to 27 at IFEMA MADRID.

The artistic practice of Ferrer, born in San Sebastián in 1937, encompasses collage, photography, drawing and sound art, and her career is associated with the minimalist movement of the early 1970s, as well as the feminist movements of that period, as explained by Estampa 2026 in a statement.

They highlight that the artist was part of the ZAJ group founded by Walter MarchettiRamon Barce and Juan Hidalgo in 1964 and dissolved in 1996, an iconic group of happenings and performance in Spain.

Likewise, they point out that the use of her own body as an artistic field places her within the genealogy of women who, in the second half of the 20th century, explored new forms of expression through action.

In this way, they highlight that the artist has made visible issues such as the temporality and spatiality of creative processes, movement, transformations and chance under a feminist perspective; and they add that their inclination for humor and the exaltation of the absurd also characterizes their work.

In 1999, he represented Spain, together with Manolo Valdés, at the Venice Biennale; In 2008 she was awarded the National Prize for Plastic Arts, in 2012 with the Gure Artea Prize of the Basque Government, in 2014 the MAV prize (Women in the visual arts), the Marie Claire Prize for Contemporary Art and the Velázquez prize.