Laia Estruch wins the Bosch Aymerich sculpture award

BarcelonaLaia Estruch (Barcelona, 1981) is one of the most unique artists in the current Catalan scene. As could be seen in the monumental Trena (Inflatable Braid) she presented in the Oval Hall of the MNAC in 2023, Estruch's work is characterized by how she uses spaces created with a strong sculptural character and vivid colors. And this Wednesday she won by unanimous decision the fourth edition of the Bosch Aymerich award, endowed with 30,000 euros, with another of these structures: Carrau, a work created this year that transformed the entrances to the gallery that represents her, the Madrid-based Ehrhardt Flórez, into an artistic experience. The Bosch Aymerich award, which is biennial, aims to promote artistic creation and especially recognize works that establish a dialogue with architecture.

Carrau is made up of three inflatable structures located at the thresholds. The pieces occupy the gallery's entrances and force visitors to adapt their movements to cross the narrow openings that have been arranged there. Thus, Estruch turns a daily gesture like entering a space into the core of the sculptural and performative action. From the outside, the structures are perceived as large colorful volumes occupying the entrances. Inside, the same pieces show other faces and chromatic patterns.

For the jury, Carrau “articulates an inseparable relationship between sculpture, architecture, and performative action”. It also highlights that the work “turns the transition between the exterior and the interior into the core of the sculptural gesture”. Another aspect that the jury has recognized is “the formal solidity, the playful and relational dimension, and the acoustic component generated by the sound of the motors and the air that maintain the shape of the structures”. “With Carrau, Laia Estruch activates the space, rethinks its limits, and proposes an understanding of sculpture as a situation, journey, and shared experience”, concludes the jury.

The jury is made up of Ainhoa Grandes, president of the Macba Foundation; Andrés Escarpenter, trustee of the Bosch Aymerich Foundation; Nuria Enguita, artistic director of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Lisbon; Alexandra Laudo, independent curator, and Juan Várez, collector and trustee of the ARCO Foundation and the Fundación Museo ABC. In previous editions of the award, the winners were Sergio Prego, Júlia Spínola, and Alberto Peral.