Wilfredo Prieto has been announced as the winner of The Cartier Award 2008. The Cuban artist based in Barcelona was selected from over 400 applications submitted by artists across the world. The award enables Prieto to realize a major project as part of Frieze Projects at Frieze Art Fair, curated by Neville Wakefield.
Prieto will present his work Pond, which consists of a site-specific arrangement of oil drums that hold water within their top lip to form a pond within the gallery. Prieto adds to this environment a live frog which is a resident of the oil-drum pond for the duration of the exhibition. A version of the work is currently on show at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin as part of the exhibition “Greenwashing” until 18 May.
Born in 1978, Prieto graduated from the Instituto Superior de Arte de la Universidad de Habana in 2002. His work has been exhibited this year in SMAK (Ghent) and at the 52nd Venice Biennial in 2007. In 2006 Prieto was a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow.