The artist Jorge Ribalta, National Photography Award for his documentary work linked to “class perspective”

The artist Jorge Ribalta has been awarded the National Photography Award corresponding to the year 2024, at the proposal of the jury gathered today for their “documentary” work linked to “labor movements, work culture and class perspective“. The prize, awarded by the Ministry of Culture, is worth 30,000 euros.

The jury has chosen the artist for “his extensive artistic, curatorial and critical career” and has especially valued “his contribution to the review of documentary photography and its historiography from artistic practice, research and thoughtas well as the establishment of a consideration of the photographic fact based on its political history, establishing the link between photography and labor movements, work culture and class perspective.

Likewise, the jury highlighted “his international projection from the beginning of his career and his recent projects that consecrate his creative dimensionits curatorial rigor and its contribution to a kind of national and European counter-history that reviews identity as a cultural artifact.”

In its last edition, the award recognized Laia Abril, joining a long list of winners, among whom are Cristóbal Hara, Pilar Aymerich, Ana Teresa Ortega Aznar, Montserrat Soto and Leopoldo Pomés, among others.

Jorge Ribalta was born in Barcelona in 1963 and is, in addition to an artist, researcher, editor and curator with an extensive career. Indeed, his first exhibition took place in Barcelona at the end of the 80s and, from that moment on, he enjoyed several stays in the United States.

His work was part of the exhibition New Photography 10, the influential annual international selection of emerging artists organized by The Museum of Modern Art [MoMA]. Since then his work, which has had different interests, from the poetics of naturalism to the documentary aspect, has been seen in group and individual exhibitions in the United States, Spain and France. And his photographs are part of collections as relevant as that of the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid.

Furthermore, a large part of his professional career has been dedicated to curating exhibitions of both national and international established artists such as Manolo Laguillo, Helen Levitt and Joan Colom; as well as group exhibitions focused on documentary and historical photography, such as ‘A harsh light, without compassion. The movement of worker photography, 1926-1939’ (Museo Reina Sofía, 2011), ‘Barcelona. The metropolis in the era of photography, 1860-2004’ (La Virreina, 2016), ‘In Spain. Photography, commissions, territories’ (ICO Museum, 2021), ‘Documentary genealogies. Photography 1848-1917’ (Museo Reina Sofía, 2022) or ‘An unknown city under the fog. New images of the Barcelona of the neighborhoods’ (MACBA, 2024).