BARCELONA, SPAIN.- The jury of the 2007 Joan Miró Prize has chosen artist Olafur Eliasson for his outstanding contribution to current art practices. The Joan Miró Prize, organized by the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona and sponsored by the Fundació Caixa Girona, comes with a cash award of 70,000 €.

The Prize award ceremony will be held in the auditorium of the Fundació Joan Miró on May 16, 2007, with jury members and the winning artist all present. During the event a trophy will be awarded. The trophy, specially designed by André Ricard, is made of titanium and takes its inspiration from natural forms.

Olafur Eliasson is a Danish-Icelandic artist born in Copenhagen in 1967. His work revolves around the study of sensory perception, the laws of physics, and natural phenomena. He uses different media, but his most remarkable works are his site-specific sculptural installations. His treatment of light, water, ice or clouds in the spaces he works in allude to his origins: the landscape of Iceland. The complexity and diversity of his works have turned him into a key figure in the current cultural scene.

The jury of the 2007 Joan Miró Prize was composed by Ida Gianelli, Director of Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Alfred Pacquement, Director of the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Vicente Todolí, Director of Tate Modern, Rosa Maria Malet, Director of the Fundació Joan Miró, and Arcadi Calzada, President of the Fundació Caixa Girona.

The jury unanimously decided to award the first Joan Miró Prize to Olafur Eliasson, as one of the most important artists of our time and for his spirit of research, innovation, engagement and freedom, which he shares with the work of Joan Miró.

During the past few years, Eliasson has shown his work in some of the most important museums around the world. Until December 2007, Frankfurt’s Portikus will be hosting “Light Lab”, an ongoing project with 12 installations. He is also preparing “Take your Time: Olafur Eliasson”, a retrospective organized by the San Francisco MOMA that will later travel to New York’s MoMA.

For June 2008, Olafur Eliasson is preparing an exhibition specially conceived for the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona. Concurrently, the Centre Cultural Caixa Girona – Fontana d’Or will host a complementary show. These exhibitions are also sponsored by Fundació Caixa Girona.