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Rocio Castro. Communication Department.
March 17, 2014
Seville, 17 March 2014.- The Focus-Abengoa Foundation today opened the exhibition of the works selected in the Focus-Abengoa International Painting Prize 2013, which features 23 works of art by finalists and prize-winners. The opening ceremony was attended by Felipe Benjumea, Chairman of Abengoa and its Foundation; José B. Terceiro, Vice- Chairman of Abengoa and Chairman of Focus-Abengoa Foundation; Anabel Morillo, Director General of the Foundation; the members of the jury and the prize-winners in this edition, Teruhiro Ando, Miguel Gómez Losada and Marisa Álvarez Gil.
The exhibition, which will be open to the public until 8 June 2014, gives pride of place to the work by Teruhiro Ando (Zentsuji, Japan, 1962) entitled Memorias XII-03, which won the 30th edition of the Painting Prize. It also features the works by Miguel Gómez Losada (Córdoba, 1967) entitled Una historia rusa and Marisa Álvarez Gil (Seville, 1971) entitled Temporal, which received runners-up prizes. The prize-winning works will form part of the Focus-Abengoa Contemporary Art Collection that consists of paintings, sculptures and graphic works and which already contains pieces by Antonio López, Botero, Carmen Laffon and Gustavo Torner, among others.
The exhibition also includes the work by Pepa Pérez, entitled Nei pressi di Forte Begato, to which the jury gave special mention and is among the selected works.
At the opening of the exhibition, Felipe Benjumea congratulated Teruhiro Ando and the other finalists, whom he praised for “the hope and trust they have placed in the Prize”, as well as for “the indisputable quality of the works submitted”. He went on to reiterate that the Painting Prize “is a clear example of the Foundation’s firm commitment to promoting fine arts and creative young artists”, supported by the objectivity and diligence of the jury.
The exhibition of the finalists’ and prize-winners’ works will be open to the public from Tuesday 18 March, between 10.00 am and 2.00 pm, and 4.00 pm to 8.00 pm, at the Hospital de los Venerables in Seville, the headquarters of the Foundation, where it will remain on show until 8 June 2014. Entry to the exhibition is free. The Foundation offers a program of educational activities aimed at students, young people, families and the general public.
The Focus-Abengoa Painting Prize, which has a long tradition and a prestigious reputation, has been held for the last 30 years and has become one of the foremost European and American awards in the art world. The jury at this edition, which was chaired by Anabel Morillo León, Director General of the Focus-Abengoa Foundation comprised Jaime Brihuega, lecturer of contemporary art at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid; Juan Carrete Parrondo, art historian; Juan Fernández Lacomba, artist and art historian; Guillermo Pérez Villalta, artist; and Manuel Sánchez Arcenegui, lecturer of drawing at the University of Seville. They analysed more than 362 works, all of outstanding quality and excellent technique, of which 53 were submitted by artists outside of Spain.
Since it was founded, the Focus-Abengoa Foundation has expressed a clear interest in all cultural activities, not only in those directly connected to the city of Seville, but all artistic, literary and scientific work, both nationally and internationally.
The Focus-Abengoa Foundation
The Focus-Abengoa Foundation was created in 1982 as a result of the cultural work begun in 1972 by Abengoa with the publication of the works Temas Sevillanos (Themes of Seville) and Iconografía de Sevilla (Iconography of Seville). A collection of documents, books and engravings on the Kingdom of Seville and by Sevillian authors was created during the same period. This initial cultural work showed Abengoa’s directors the importance of the company’s involvement in activities that directly benefit society, beyond the firm’s core technology work, which led to the creation of the Seville Cultural Fund Foundation. The Hospital de los Venerables, a 17th century monument and the headquarters of the Focus-Abengoa Foundation in Seville, has housed the Diego Velázquez Research Centre, a leading institution for studying and disseminating the Baroque era and the Sevillian period of this universally renowned artist, since the acquisition of Velázquez’s Santa Rufina by the Foundation in 2007. The focus on this crucial era of the Golden Age is complemented with the legacy from Professor Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, bequeathed to the Foundation in 2011. It comprises his library, photo library, personal archive and art collection and is being catalogued to help create a library specialising in the art and culture of the Baroque period.
Information about the prize-winners
Teruhiro Ando (Zentsuji, Japan, 1962). Teruhiro Ando is a Japanese artist who has lived in Spain since 1992. He graduated in fine arts from the University of Tama (Tokyo) in 1984, where he specialised in drawing, producing minutely detailed and highly realistic figurative works. Between 1985 and 1990 he continued his training in Slovenia with a postgraduate scholarship to study painting and restoration at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana. His career then moved towards minimalism and installation pieces. In 1991 he lived in Edinburgh (United Kingdom), working on the Japan Festival at the University of Edinburgh, before travelling to Seville in 1992 to participate in the Japanese Pavilion at Expo92, when he decided to stay on and live in Spain. During this period he participated in various group exhibitions in Germany, Austria, Great Britain and Spain and his work from this era is conceptual, working mostly with installations. Between 1993 and 2000, while living in Spain, he withdrew from the world of art and did not exhibit his work, focusing instead on developing his own language and furthering his personal journey. He began studying classical art in search of a connection between this and contemporary art, which resulted in his new style that has a technical precision, common among the great classical masters, in a constant search for shapes and new proposals. In 2000 he returned to his artistic work and since then his pictorial work has questioned the reality of perception, surprising the viewer with the optical illusion of the trompe l’oeil. He has won numerous painting prizes including the Adaja Prize in 2005, the Bancaja Prize in 2006, the Plasencia Salón de Otoño and the BMW Painting Prize in 2008, and the Valdepeñas International Fine Arts Exhibition prize in 2012.
Miguel Gómez Losada (Córdoba, 1967). Fine arts degree from the University of Seville. He has exhibited his pictorial work in various national galleries and exhibitions, holding the individual Ida and Fecunda exhibitions at the Pilar Parra Gallery in Madrid (1996 and 1999); Tundra at the Rayuela Gallery in Madrid (2000), at ARCO 2000; Árbol at the Carme Espinet Gallery in Barcelona (2003), or Geografía Reservada at the Fàbrica de Licors in Palma de Mallorca (2005). In 2008 he presented his exhibition La esperanza at the Carmen del Campo Gallery in Córdoba (ART MADRID 2009), and Visiones de un nuevo mundo / primeras flores y otras hierbas / el frío, las estrellas at the Aba Art Gallery in Mallorca. At the same time he has shown a particular interest in street art, creating pictorial pieces that criss-cross our cities, such as CDAN in Huesca in 2007; La orilla del paraíso in La Alameda de Hércules for the 2nd Festival de Perfopoesía in Seville; or transforming the heart of Córdoba (Ártica for Eutopía 2007), in which he emphasises the artist as a citizen with a collective mind-set.
Marisa Álvarez Gil (Seville, 1971). Marisa holds a degree in fine arts, specializing in photography, from the universities of Seville and Barcelona. While studying for her degree she also attended numerous seminars at Menéndez Pelayo International University on photography, the history of painting, and abstract painting by Kandinsky. She has participated in various group exhibitions in venues such as the Francesc Mestre Art gallery or the Asociación de Amics de la Rambla, both in Barcelona. Marisa has also held solo exhibitions in cities such as Burgos, Barcelona, Toulouse, Frankfurt and Constanza.
Useful details:
Opening times
Every day from 10.00 am to 2.00 pm and from 4.00 pm to 8.00 pm.
Last entry 30 minutes before closing.
Ticket prices
Free entry
Educational activities with prior reservation on 902 091 137
Workshop-visits for school children and guided tours for the general public
Family visits on Saturdays
Abengoa employees and their families on Sundays, with prior registration on the Foundation’s website at www.focus.abengoa.es
T +34 954 56 26 96
F +34 954 56 45 95
For more information:
Abengoa Communications Department
Patricia Malo de Molina Meléndez.
Cristina Cabrera Angulo
Tel. +34 954 93 71 11
E-mail: communication@abengoa.com
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Memorias XII-03. Teruhiro Ando
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