On Thursday 24th February 2022, the fifth Catalina D’Anglade art award was held in ARCOmadrid. This award is one of the most innovative art support projects in the Spanish art scene. This latest edition was won by June Crespo (Pamplona, 1982) with her work ‘Cuando nuestros ojos se tocan’ (When our eyes touch). The work consists of two caps cast directly in steel, where parts of the casting process, such as the sprues and the ceramic liners, can be observed. Crespo explains that “the two elements welded together and anchored to the wall function as receptacles that face each other, and generate an active empty space between them, just like the space found between two hands, or two heads… The title is taken from a quote by Derrida: “When our eyes touch, is it day or night?” A precise moment, when our gazes meet, when we see ourselves looking at someone else and someone else looking at us. A precise moment that in turn opens up an undefined space. It appears to tell us of the meeting between sight and touch, of their qualities merged into one. In this work, what we know is transformed into something else. We experience an unfamiliarity”.
The artist, whose work is on show at the Carreras Múgica stand, has also been invited to participate in the central exhibition of the Venice Biennale this year. The Catalina D’Anglade Art Award consists of two phases: in the first stage the award is given and the winning piece is acquired by the promoter, and in the second, the artist works on an unpublished project where art and design share the same space. This project, that has been developed by the Pamplona-based artist as the second phase of the award, will see the light of day in 2023. The winners of the previous editions of the award were Daniel Steegmann Mangrane(2020), Luis Gordillo(2019), Secundino Hernandez(2018) and Fernanda Fragateiro(2017).