Recognize a generation of creative women and the technique of knitting as a language. The 2023 National Prize for Plastic Arts, awarded by the Ministry of Culture and Sports and endowed with 30,000 euros, has gone to the tapestries of the Barcelona-born Teresa Lanceta (1951), which last year was the subject of a major retrospective at the Museu d ‘Art Contemporani de Barcelona curated by Núria Enguita and Laura Vallés.
The jury has recognized Teresa Lanceta “for an artistic practice sustained over time that rescues a feminine, vernacular and collective language.” “Awarding Lanceta is recognizing a generation of women, the technique of weaving as a language, a primordial code of humanity far from the patriarchal through which it has come into contact with the cultures of various groups such as the Roma population, the Moroccan nomadic weavers or the residents of the Raval.”
One of Teresa Lanceta’s tapestries
Furthermore, he adds that “Lanceta reviews the modern idea of authorship, directing its practice towards collaborative formats. Artistic traditions and ways of life with which he has maintained a dialogue through his tapestries, paintings, drawings and his theorizing. Both his practice and the questions he raises enjoy great reception among artists of later generations.”
With a degree in History from the University of Barcelona and a PhD in Art History from the Complutense of Madrid, Lanceta has been a teacher at the School of Architecture of Alicante and the Escola Massana in Barcelona.
An image from the Macba retrospective
Since the seventies, her artistic work has focused on the use of textiles as a form of expression, blurring the boundary between crafts and art. Added to his interest in formal exploration are material and technical issues, as well as traditions and ways of life associated with the act of weaving.
For this reason, her work establishes a dialogue, through tapestries, paintings, drawings and artistic theories, with the culture of different populations that have a direct relationship with the textile tradition, such as the Roma population or Moroccan nomadic weavers.
Teresa Lanceta, photographed at Macba
Among the topics of her artistic research are the work of popular textile art in Morocco, the 15th century Spanish carpet, and the work of women in the tobacco industry.
The jury, chaired by Isaac Sastre, general director of Cultural Heritage and Fine Arts of the Ministry of Culture, and acting as vice president, Mercedes Roldán Sánchez, deputy general director of State Museums, was made up of Rogelio López Cuenca, 2022 National Plastic Arts Award ; María Jesús Martínez, director of the Art Gender Nature Institute of Basel; Marta Rincón, cultural manager; Javier González Hontoria, director of the Patio Herreriano Museum; Soledad Gutiérrez, researcher and exhibition curator; Agustín Pérez Rubio, independent commissioner; Aurora Fernández Polanco, professor of Theory and History of Contemporary Art at the Complutense and Nekane Aramburu, at the proposal of Women in the Visual Arts, cultural manager, museologist and theorist.
