Cristina Lucas receives the Pilar Forcada ART Situacions – ARCOmadrid 2026 Prize
Cristina Lucas receives the Pilar Forcada ART Situacions – ARCOmadrid 2026 Prize
Sponsored by Honda – Greens, the award recognizes the best emerging artwork at ARCOmadrid 2025.
With a prize of €15,000, the prize was presented on Thursday, March 5, at the gallery Albarrán Bourdais stand.
Madrid, March 5, 2026.- Today the Pilar Forcada ART Situacions – ARCOmadrid 2026 Prize, worth €15,000, was awarded to Cristina Lucas, an artist born in Jaén and based in Madrid.
The prize was presented to Galería Albarrán Bourdais, which represents the award-winning artist, during a very emotional ceremony that paid special tribute to the memory of its founder, Pilar Forcada. The event featured remarks from Maribel López, Director of ARCOmadrid; Marcel Pascual, Director and Patron of ART Situacions; and jury members Lorena M. de Coral and Ferran Barenblit. The winning work will be incorporated into the ART Situacions collection.
The prize, first established in 2017, has taken on a particularly special significance since its most recent edition, when it was renamed the Pilar Forcada ART Situacions Prize in memory of the founder and director of ART Situacions, the driving spirit behind the project, who sadly is no longer with us. Her husband, Marcel Pascual, Managing Director of Honda-Greens, has taken up the mantle to continue this initiative, which his wife led with great enthusiasm and success.
About the winning work
The prize has been awarded to the work D.A.N.C.E (Dynamic Algorithm, Neural Creative Evolution) 3, which is part of a larger series by the artist Cristina Lucas.
The transparent series “Composiciones” refers to the revolution of big data: data processing, the loss of privacy, and the exponential use of screens and camera-equipped devices that enable constant surveillance. The works are assembled from key elements used in the manufacture of screens, such as cobalt, manganese, nickel, zinc, and lithium. Through the use of these materials—linked to geopolitical conflicts, child labor, and pollution, as well as to the vital development of the human body—Lucas reminds us that materiality is not abstract, but concrete.
D.A.N.C.E (Dynamic Algorithm, Neural Creative Evolution) 3, de 200 x 150 cm, measuring 200 × 150 cm, is a unique piece made with next-generation electronic components, cobalt, lithium, nickel, manganese, silicon, copper, and resin on transparent acrylic.
About the artist
Through her work, Cristina Lucas reminds us that art is a form of seduction that helps make us aware of what is happening in our society. Interested in the mechanisms of power, she analyzes political and economic structures, dissecting them to reveal the contradictions between official history, reality, and collective memory.
Working across a variety of media—including sculpture, video, painting, photography, and performance—Lucas confronts the flow of information and structures it into cartographies, installations, or images, creating possible interpretations that nevertheless always remain unfinished.
Works by Cristina Lucas include the performance “Habla” (2008), in which the artist strikes with a hammer a reproduction of Michelangelo Buonarroti’s Moses, alluding to the legend that the artist carved into the knee of his sculpture; as well as pictorial compositions made with the same chemical elements that constitute the human body, produced through the uncontrolled chemical reactions of those elements. With a distinctive satirical style, the artist interprets cultural and political stereotypes and broadens perspectives to incorporate viewpoints drawn from intimacy and everyday life.
Her work is included in international collections such as the Centre Pompidou (Paris); Fundació “la Caixa” (Barcelona); Banco de España (Madrid); Mudam (Luxembourg); FRAC Lorraine (Metz); IVAM – Institut Valencià d’Art Modern (Valencia); Kiasma – National Museum of Contemporary Art (Helsinki); Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven); Fundación NMAC Montenmedio (Cádiz); The Coppel Collection (Mexico); and the Bulgari Collection (Rome), among others.
A Project of Patronage and Passion for Art
Aware of the scarcity of opportunities facing the youngest sector of contemporary art, ART Situacions, which arose from the personal desire of the Catalan collector couple Pilar Forcada and Marcel Pascual to contribute to invigorating the artistic fabric, was born in 2011 to promote emerging art through economic support for creation. As a result, two editions have already been held. The first took place in 2012 with Portugal as the guest country and featured the participation of Spanish artists Patricia Dauder, Pepe Cifuentes, Francesc Ruiz, Juan López Díez, Miki Leal, Jaime de la Jara, Santiago Giralda, Nuria Fuster, and the Portuguese artists Mauro Cerqueira and Carla Filipe. The second was held in 2016 with the Italian artists Ludovica Carbotta, Gabriele de Santis, Anna Franceschini, Diego Marcon, and Alek O. and the Spanish artists Miren Doiz, José Guerrero, Rubén Guerrero, Teresa Solar Abboud, and Anna Talens. Finally, the third initiative strengthened ties with France and brought together the work of five Spanish artists and five French artists: Elena Aitzkoa, Nora Aurrekoetxea, Lucía Bayón, Aleix Plademunt, and Pablo Capitán del Río, along with the French artists Salomé Chatriot, Marie-Luce Nadal, Benoît Piéron, Elsa Brès, and Yoan Sorin. They were selected by a committee formed by María de Corral, Lorena Martínez de Corral, Chus Martínez, and Vicent Todolí.
Following the passing of Pilar Forcada in 2021, her husband Marcel Pascual, collector and general manager of Honda-Greens, has taken over the direction of ART Situacions with the will to give continuity to the project in memory of his wife and their shared passion for art for over 50 years. “For almost half a century we have built together an eclectic and diverse collection, where alongside renowned artists we incorporate works by emerging promises,” says Marcel Pascual. “It has given us great joy to have contributed with our support to ensuring that a good number of artists have been able to dedicate themselves exclusively to creation.”
In addition, between 2017 and 2022, ART Situacions convened the annual ART Situacions ARCOmadrid prize to recognize the best work of emerging art at the fair. Its winners have been: Antonio Ballester Moreno (2017), Carlos Irijalba (2018), Patricia Gómez and María Jesús González (2019), Asunción Molinos Gordo (2020), Irma Álvarez-Laviada (2022) and Lara Fluxà (2025).
Fotos: David Nieto