Esther Ferrer (born 1937 in

San Sebastián San Sebastián, officially known by the bilingual name Donostia / San Sebastián (, ), is a city and municipality located in the Basque Autonomous Community, Spain. It lies on the coast of the Bay of Biscay, from the France–Spain border ...

, Spain) is a Spanish performance artist. Ferrer received Spain's National Award for Plastic Arts (1999), the Marie-Claire Prize for Contemporary Art in France, and the Velázquez Plastic Arts Prize.

History and career

In 1966 she joined Walter Marchetti and

Juan Hidalgo Codorniu Juan Hidalgo Codorniu (14 October 1927 – 26 February 2018) was a Spanish composer, poet, an action and visual artist. Biography Hidalgo was born in Las Palmas, Canary Islands. After studying piano and composition in Barcelona and Paris wit ...

in the Spanish

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

group Zaj, famous for its radical conceptual art performances, whose controversial "concerts" were presented in Spanish concert halls despite the censorship of Franco's regime. Zaj also performed in many other countries for thirty years, until 1996, when the group broke up after a retrospective in the Reina Sofia Museum in

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

. As a performer she has participated in festivals in Canada, Korea, the United States and Japan, and throughout Europe (France, Italy, Holland Belgium, Bulgaria, Switzerland, England, the Czech Republic, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Slovakia, Germany and Hungary). Her production also includes objects, photos, video pieces, visual systems based on

prime numbers A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only ways ...

, and a large collection of self-portraits in many media. Ferrer is the author of two radio productions made for Radio Nacional de España (''Au rhythm du temps'' and ''Ta, te, ti, to, tu ou l'agriculture dans le Moyen Age'') and has given seminars on the performance arts in Universities and in Schools of Fine Arts in Spain, France, Italy, Canada, Switzerland and Mexico. Ferrer represented Spain in the Venice Bienal in 1999, and did large individual shows in subsequent years in the FRAC Bretagne (Rennes, France), MACVAL (Val de Marne, France), and with the

Instituto Cervantes Instituto Cervantes (, the Cervantes Institute) is a worldwide nonprofit organization created by the Spanish government in 1991. It is named after Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616), the author of ''Don Quixote'' and perhaps the most important fi ...

in several South American cities. Ferrer's work was included in the 2021 exhibition '' Women in Abstraction'' at the

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

. In autumn 2022 opened a solo retrospective exhibit at the Art and Culture Foundation Opelvillen Rüsselsheim, as part of Spain being guest of honor at the 2022

Frankfurt book fair The Frankfurt Book Fair (German: , FBM) is the world's largest trade fair for books, based on the number of publishing companies represented. The five-day annual event in mid-October is held at the Frankfurt Trade Fair grounds in Frankfurt am ...

. In September 2022, Esther Ferrer was the recipient of the Prix international de Littérature Bernard Heidsieck Prix d'honneur awarded by the

and Archivio Conz. Ferrer was married to minimalist composer Tom Johnson until his death in late-2024.

References

External links

Archivio Conz

Esther Ferrer: Works and Process
Two-part documentary series on Esther Ferrer
FONS AUDIO #1: Esther Ferrer
A podcast on the artist and the Za
Group

Official Esther Ferrer Website
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ferrer, Esther 1936 births Living people Spanish contemporary artists Interdisciplinary artists 20th-century Spanish women artists 21st-century Spanish women artists