Pipilotti Rist has won the second Joan Miró Prize. The art award, worth €70,000 (SFr106,000), is one of the largest of its kind.

The jury said that Rist had been recognised for her wide-ranging creative activity and her outstanding contribution to the current artist scene.

The prize is organised by the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona and sponsored by the Fundació Caixa Girona.

According to a statement released by the Joan Miró Foundation, Rist was honoured unanimously by the jury because, "over the last twenty years, Pipilotti Rist has never ceased to surprise and provoke us with her artistic explorations that take us through mental and aesthetic landscapes, while penetrating into the deepest strata of the personal conscious and the collective conscious, often straddling them both in a way that is both forceful and elusive".

For her part, Rist said that she had become aware of the legacy of Spanish artist Miró last year after seeing an exhibition in New York. "It is really a special honour to get a prize with his appreciated name. I'm thankful to him and many artists before me who didn't give up and shaped and enlarged my view to the world," she was quoted as saying.

In addition, Rist will be presenting an exhibition at the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona and another at the Centre Cultural Caixa Girona - Fontana d'Or in Girona.

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