Cristina Iglesias (b. 1956, San Sebastián) is internationally renowned for immersive sculptural environments that unite architecture, literature, and site-specific cultural references. Working across a language of constructed and organic forms—pavilions, screens, passages, and labyrinthine structures—she combines industrial materials with natural motifs to produce spaces that blur the boundaries between interior and exterior, artifice and nature. Her works function as experiential “fictions,” inviting viewers into sensory encounters that transform perception of space and place.
Her work has been shown in solo exhibitions at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Michigan, USA (2023); Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK (2022); Skulpturenhalle - The Thomas Schütte Foundation, Germany (2021); Centro Botín, Santander, Spain (2018); Musée de Grenoble, France (2016); BOZAR, Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels, Belgium (2014); a large retrospective at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain (2013); and at Casa Franças, Rio de Janeiro (2013). Earlier solo shows have been exhibited at the Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro, Milan (2009); Ludwig Museum, Cologne (2006); Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2003); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2003); Museu Serralves, Fundaçao Serralves, Oporto (2002); Guggenheim New York (1997); and Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain (1999).
Iglesias has participated in a number of international exhibitions and public commissions and has represented Spain at the Venice Biennale in 1986 and 1993; and at the Sydney Biennale in 2012. Public commissions include Forgotten Streams at Bloomberg Headquarters in London (2017) and the enormous permanent public commission, Tres Aguas – a Project for Toledo, Toledo, Spain (2014). In 2020 she was awarded the Royal Academy Architecture Prize, London.
Iglesias lives and works near Madrid.