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The IVAM awards Joana Vasconcelos the Julio González Prize 2026
The IVAM Advisory Board has decided to award the 2026 Julio González International Prize to the Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos, one of the most renowned and daring voices in contemporary art. Her work, which combines irony, monumentality, and a profoundly sensitive perspective on identity, femininity, and cultural heritage, has woven its own unique language between the everyday and the symbolic.
To mark this award, the Institut Valencià d'Art Modern (IVAM) will pay tribute to his career with a major exhibition curated by Blanca de la Torre, which will be open to the public in the last quarter of 2026. The exhibition will bring together some of Vasconcelos's most emblematic pieces, which have become icons of European art, and will offer a journey through his creative universe: a territory where objects come to life, fabrics are transformed into architecture, and tradition engages in dialogue with contemporary art.
“Vasconcelos’s work, full of external references to popular culture and making use of artisanal techniques including crochet, embroidery or trimmings, redefines gender conventions, deconstructing stereotypes and giving them new interpretations,” explained the director of the IVAM, Blanca de la Torre.
Vasconcelos creates sculptures and installations—often monumental in scale—that, with subtle irony, question and dismantle the artificial boundaries between high and low culture. His work engages in a dialogue with the architectural space that houses it, generating a dynamic and ever-changing relationship between form and context. This is further enhanced by a constant metalinguistic reflection on the very nature of art and a powerful presence of poetic elements, which transform each of his pieces into a territory where thought, emotion, and matter intertwine.
For over a quarter of a century, the Julio González International Prize has recognized essential figures in contemporary art, including Georg Baselitz, Cy Twombly, Anish Kapoor, Eduardo Chillida, Markus Lüpertz, Robert Rauschenberg, Anthony Caro, Miquel Navarro, Pierre Soulages, Frank Stella, Jasper Johns, Robert Morris, Bernar Venet, Christian Boltanski, and Andreu Alfaro. Since 2016, the prize has been awarded biennially and includes a €20,000 grant, solidifying its position as one of the most prestigious awards bestowed by the IVAM (Valencian Institute of Modern Art).
