BERLIN.- Esther Schipper congratulates Rosa Barba on receiving the 2026 Zurich Art Prize, awarded annually by Museum Haus Konstruktiv and Zurich Insurance Company Ltd.
Rosa Barba’s work fluctuates between film, sculpture and installation, whereby the boundaries are always fluid. Processes of transformation, perception and incorporation, both in a material and conceptual sense, are her central themes. Her characteristic interest in linking art and science manifests itself both in her film work and in her engagement with landscapes, or so-called ‘future ecologies’. In the past, her gaze often turned to the desert – a space between emptiness, memory and imaginative projection.
Her filmic works often begin like documentaries, but then drift into fictional spheres. Reality becomes narrative material that is constantly reshaping itself. The central factor is always the specific location, along with its markings, stories and urgent political (often precarious) dimensions. These parameters, which Barba sees as archive material, are not just used for reconstruction, but actively reinterpreted and transferred to new contexts. Thus, this artist allows us to immerse ourselves in ‘open archive structures’, as she calls them, which manifest themselves in expansive projections between matter and concept. Language and poetics also play an important role here.
Barba's international museum solo and group exhibitions include: the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2025); MALI Museo, Peru (2024); Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2024); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2023); Tate Modern, London (2023); Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2021); Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan (2017); Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid (2017); Vienna Secession (2017); and Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt (2016).
Barba has been Full Professor of Art in Space and Time at the ETH Zurich Department of Architecture since 2023.
The Zurich Art Prize was set up in 2007 by Haus Konstruktiv, together with Zurich Insurance Company Ltd, patron partner of the museum. Every year since, an independent artist has been honoured, who operates at the interfaces where the cultural heritage of constructivist-concrete and conceptual art meets contemporary trends. With Sabine Schaschl at the helm, prize money of CHF 20,000 was introduced for the first time in 2017. From 2018 to 2025, the total amount awarded thus comprised an CHF 80,000 budget for production of a solo exhibition and CHF 20,000 in prize money. From 2026 onwards, the award will comprise CHF 100,000 for producing the exhibition and CHF 30,000 as special recognition for the artist.
