Annie Leibovitz
Waterbury, Connecticut (USA) 1949

With a prolific body of work rich in nuance, Annie Leibovitz (b. Waterbury, Connecticut, USA 1949) has established herself as a central figure in contemporary photography, as well as one of the most prominent chroniclers of popular culture in the 20th and 21st centuries. After studying painting at the San Francisco Art Institute, photography was the medium in which she found her own distinctive vision. From her early work for Rolling Stone magazine in the 1970s, she has crafted some of the most iconic images in contemporary visual culture, securing a prominent place in the collective imagination. With portraiture as her preferred medium, Leibovitz’s work reconceives the boundaries between popular and high culture, glamour and vulnerability, and the public and the private.

Despite an initially direct approach, her photography soon became more elaborate and conceptual, besides evolving from analog to digital. Always aware of the ambiguous nature of photographic images, Leibovitz strikes a balance between the staged and the spontaneous. Her work is often painterly, where every detail carries symbolic meaning. An essential feature is controlling environmental aspects to exploit them as discursive elements, though not in terms of subordinating the natural to the artificial, but rather of reexamining the public image of the subject to reveal their inner self. This theatrical staging – drawing in some ways from the Baroque – often exposes the fragility coexisting with the image of power, rather than aggrandizing the subjects she photographs. Her iconic 1980 photograph of John Lennon and Yoko Ono exemplifies this dynamic: the naked, fetal body of Lennon clinging to the fully clothed and composed Ono reverses traditional power roles and plays with the tension between the intimate and the public. Leibovitz’s work can be seen through the lens of postmodernism, as she employs intertextuality and the appropriation of existing cultural archetypes and codes to subvert established categories.

Her creative process should not be understood solely as a technical feat but rather as a conceptual approach to her subjects. Leibovitz often immerses herself in her subjects’ lives, spending time with them and studying their worlds before releasing the shutter. This drawing nearer to the subject reveals an ethos that values process over the result, with the aim of capturing the unique essence of the persons portrayed. The idea is evident in works such as her 1984 portrait of Whoopi Goldberg, where the image of the actress, submerged in a milk-filled bathtub, highlights both her comedic persona and her racial identity; or in Leibovitz’s 2011 series Pilgrimage, which lingers on places and objects central to American cultural memory. Her role as a documentary photographer is as significant as her status as a celebrity portraitist: her coverage of the Sarajevo conflict in 1993 and photographs of Richard Nixon’s departure by helicopter on the day of his resignation in 1974 are prime examples.

Throughout her career, Leibovitz has worked with major publications such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times. Her work has been exhibited around the world, including retrospectives at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery (Washington, D.C., USA, 1991), the Brooklyn Museum (New York, USA, 2007), and the National Portrait Gallery (London, UK, 2009), among others. Her photographs are held in prominent collections such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, USA), the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (USA).

Clara Derrac

Pablo Hernández de Cos (Madrid 1971)
Gobernador del Banco de España Junio 2018 - Junio 2024

Pablo Hernández de Cos, General Manager of the BIS for a five-year term, starting on 1 July 2025.

Born in Madrid, Spain in 1971, Mr Hernández de Cos holds a PhD in economics from the Complutense University of Madrid, specialising in macroeconomics, fiscal and monetary policy and financial stability. He has a degree in economics and business administration from CUNEF Universidad and a degree in law from the UNED.

Mr Hernández de Cos began his career at the Bank of Spain in 1997. Prior to becoming Governor, he served in senior roles at the Bank of Spain, including as Director General Economics, Statistics and Research, and served on the boards of the International Center for Monetary and Banking Studies (ICMB) and the Foundation for Applied Economic Studies (FEDEA). He previously chaired the ECB Working Group on Public Finances and has been a member of the Economic and Financial Committee and the Economic Policy Committee of the European Union. He also served as an Adviser to the Executive Board of the ECB.

Mr Hernández de Cos was previously Governor of the Bank of Spain, a position he held from 2018 until June 2024. During his Governorship, he was a member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) and was also Chair of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision from January 2019 to June 2024. Also during his tenure as Governor, he was a member of the Financial Stability Board and the BIS Group of Governors and Heads of Supervision and served as Vice Chairman of the Spanish Macroprudential Authority Financial Stability Council. He served as Alternate Governor for Spain at the International Monetary Fund, Chair of the Board of Governors of the Center for Latin American Monetary Studies (CEMLA) and President of the Board of Trustees for the Centro de Estudios Monetarios y Financieros (CEMFI). He is the Chair of the Advisory Technical Committee of the European Systemic Risk Board and is a member of its Board and Steering Committee. He is currently Professor of the Practice of Management of Economics at the IESE Business School and a non-resident fellow of Bruegel and the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

BDE Banco de España