Katharina Fritsch and Cecilia Vicuña Awarded Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement at Venice Biennale

The 2022 Venice Biennale will honor Katharina Fritsch and Cecilia Vicuña with Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement, as announced by curator Cecilia Alemani. Fritsch, a German sculptor, creates large-scale monochromatic works that transform everyday objects into what she describes as three-dimensional pictures. Her process involves hand-molding, casting, and matte painting, producing pieces like the 2013 royal blue cockerel for London's Trafalgar Square Fourth Plinth and the 1999 Rattenkönig installation that Alemani first encountered. Vicuña, a Chilean-born multidisciplinary artist and activist, focuses on ecology, indigenous knowledge, and anti-colonial themes through what she terms Arte Precario—works using found materials to balance microscopic and monumental scales. She went into exile after the CIA-backed coup against President Salvador Allende, shaping her artistic rebellion against pain and abuse. Alemani praised Fritsch's incomparable contribution to contemporary sculpture and Vicuña's anticipation of ecological and feminist debates through non-Western epistemologies. Vicuña described the award as an honor that highlights art's role in moving away from violence and environmental collapse. The biennale, titled The Milk of Dreams, opens on 23 April.