ANIMAC AWARDS THE 2026 LIFETIME AWARD TO MONTXO ALGORA

Artist and curator, founder and director of ArtFutura, he is a pioneering figure in digital culture and creativity in our country

Animac, the International Animated Film Festival of Catalonia, organized by the Lleida City Council and which will be held from February 19 to 22, 2026, awards the 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award to Montxo Algora, curator, artist and cultural manager, in recognition of a decisive career in the introduction, development and consolidation of contemporary digital culture in the Spanish State.

As a visual artist and designer, Algora actively participated in the creative scene of La Movida in the late seventies and during the eighties, with visual interventions in emblematic spaces such as La Vía Láctea and graphic works for key groups of the time such as Aviador Dro and La Mode. In the 1980s he trained at the School of Visual Arts in New York and worked as art director at Digital Productions, one of the pioneering computer graphics and 3D animation studios in Los Angeles.

In 1990 he founded ArtFutura, an event dedicated to exploring the future of art in relation to new technologies, which he has directed for more than thirty editions and which has developed activities in cities such as Barcelona, Madrid, Seville, Granada, Ibiza, Buenos Aires, Mexico, London, Rome and Montevideo. The annual ArtFutura exhibitions have had the participation of fundamental figures of digital culture such as William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Laurie Anderson, Theo Jansen, Moebius, David Byrne or Brian Eno, among many others.

Among other notable projects, in 1992 he directed the multidisciplinary show “Memory Place”, based on an original text by William Gibson, and as curator he was responsible for the exhibition “Machines & Souls” at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, one of the most relevant digital art exhibitions held in this institution, which received more than 450,000 visitors.

Throughout his career, Montxo Algora has defended a humanistic view of technology and digital creation, exploring how digital tools can expand creative and artistic possibilities. A vision that fully connects with the motto of this edition of Animac: Things Change.

For all these reasons, Animac awards Montxo Algora the 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award.

The exhibition has the support of CaixaForum Lleida, the Fundació de les Arts de Lleida, the Ministry of Culture (ICAA), the Provincial Council of Lleida (IEI) and the ICEC of the Department of Culture of the Generalitat of Catalonia.