Esther Ferrer

Esther Ferrer is a Spanish artist born in San Sebastián in 1937. Throughout her career, she has stood out as one of the leading representatives of conceptual and performance art in Spain. Ferrer studied at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts in Madrid before moving to Paris in 1967, where she came into contact with the Fluxus group and other avant-garde artists. Her work focused on the exploration of duration, time and space, as well as the relationship between the body and the art object. In her work, Ferrer often uses her own body as both a tool and object of performance, exploring the relationship between performer and spectator. In her performance "How Long is a Minute," for example, the artist sits in silence for a full minute, creating tension in the audience as they await the end of time. Ferrer's work has been exhibited in major museums and galleries around the world, including the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2019, the artist was awarded Spain's National Prize for Plastic Arts for her outstanding contribution to contemporary Spanish art. She has also received numerous awards and recognitions throughout her career, including the Gure Artea Award from the Basque Government in 2018 and the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts in 2015.