Born in Palencia, Spain (1970) and educated at Chelsea College of Art & Design, Juan Cruz is an artist and writer currently based in London. Exhibitions of his works are, more often than not, responsive to the particularities of the context where they are installed, but the work itself is almost always based on personal content. Cruz writes autobiographical narratives and shorter descriptive texts, which he has deployed through videos, installations, typescripts, prints and performances; he has also worked with translation, performing several oral translations of works from Spanish literature, including Don Quijote, into English and, more recently, of American art magazine Artforum into Spanish. In 2006 Juan Cruz A translation of Niebla (Fog) by Miguel de Unamuno was published by Forma and in 2007 another translated work, SEDA, an Interesting Story was included in The Alpine Fantasy of Victor B. and Other Stories , Serpent’s Tail, London.
His work has been exhibited at Matt’s Gallery, London; Camden Arts Centre, London; Witte de With, Rotterdam; Serralves Foundation, Porto; Galeria Elba Benitez, Madrid; the Edinburgh International Festival and the Melbourne Festival. In 1999 Cruz was awarded a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists and in 2000 named Artist Fellow at Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge. Between 1995 and 1998 Cruz was a regular contributor to the London-based magazine Art Monthly, and has continued to write on the work of other artists
throughout his career.
Juan is represented by Galeria Elba Benitez, Madrid and Matt’s Gallery, London.
Juan is a specialist in Practice led research and is Deputy Chair of REF2021 Sub Panel 34: Art & Design History, Theory and Practice, having been a panel member in 2014 (REF is the mechanism used by the government in the UK to assess the research quality of Institutions and to assign funding.) He is also a member of PBRF Creative and Performing Arts Panel (New Zealand Research Assessment Exercise). He is a director of the IAAC (International Awards for Art Criticism) http://www.iaac-m21.com/english/.