Venice Biennale, to Anna Maria Maiolino and Nil Yalter the Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement

On Saturday, April 20, 2024 at Ca’ Giustinian in Venice, the awards and opening ceremony of the 60th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale was held. During the event, Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement were awarded to artists Anna Maria Maiolino (Scalea, Italy, 1942; lives in São Paulo, Brazil) and Nil Yalter (Cairo, Egypt, 1938; lives in Paris, France). The decision was approved by the Biennale’s Board of Directors, chaired by Roberto Cicutto, upon the proposal of Adriano Pedrosa, Curator of the 60th International Art Exhibition. Both artists are participating in the Biennale Arte for the first time: Maiolino with a new large-scale work that expands and develops the series of her clay sculptures and installations; Yalter, on the other hand, offers a reworking of her installation Exile is a hard job, along with her iconic work Topak Ev, placed in the first hall of the Central Pavilion.

“This decision is particularly significant,” said Adriano Pedrosa, "in light of the title and framework of the Exhibition, which focuses on artists who have traveled and migrated between North and South, Europe and other countries, or vice versa. My choice, in this sense, falls on two extraordinary and pioneering artists, as well as migrants, who embody in many ways the spirit of Stranieri Ovunque - Foreigners Everywhere: Anna Maria Maiolino (Scalea, Italy, 1942; lives in São Paulo, Brazil), who emigrated from Italy to South America, first to Venezuela and then to Brazil, where she lives today, and Nil Yalter (Cairo, Egypt, 1938; lives in Paris, France), a Turkish woman who moved from Cairo to Istanbul and finally to Paris, where she resides."

Notes on the artists

Anna Maria Maiolino was born on May 20, 1942 in Scalea, Italy, and then emigrated with her family to Caracas, Venezuela in 1954, a few years after World War II. There he studied at the Escuela de Artes Visuales Cristóbal Rojas between 1958 and 1960, when he moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he attended free courses in painting, sculpture and woodcut at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes. She switched to this technique, which allowed her to connect with the popular woodcuts practiced in northeastern Brazil; she would use it for several years precisely because it was steeped in social criticism. Through attending the Escola de Belas Artes and artists in Rio, Maiolino became part of the well-known Brazilian art movement called Nova Figuração, a reaction to the abstraction of the 1960s contaminated by pop inflections, which also reflected the country’s harsh political climate during the early years of the military dictatorship (1964-1985). During that period Maiolino continued to develop his language and skills, attending the famous art courses taught by Ivan Serpa (1923-1973) at the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro. In 1964 he held his first solo exhibition at Galeria G in Caracas, and in 1967 he participated in the historic Nova Objetividade Brasileira exhibition in Rio de Janeiro. Between 1968 and 1971 Maiolino lived in New York City. In his last year, on the recommendation of Luis Camnitzer, he received a fellowship at The Pratt Graphics Center and practiced the technique of metal engraving, etching, broadening his artistic horizons to various media and experimental poetry. His paintings and etchings of the 1960s are quite radical, as they combine pop imagery with the typical repertoire of Nova Figuração, focusing on political characters and narratives, as well as personal, bodily and family references.

Between the 1970s and 1980s Maiolino began to engage in performance art and, in 1981, staged his astonishing Entrevidas, in which dozens of eggs are scattered on the floor and challenge the artist to traverse the space as if it were a “minefield,” taking into account the fragility and precariousness of the egg, a symbol of life itself. In the early 1990s he took up working with clay, signaling a new focus on gestural and sensory expression, the handmade and the relationship with the material earth, clay, elemental materials in sculptures and reliefs that persist to this day. For the 60th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, Maiolino presents a new large-scale work that continues and develops his series of clay sculptures and installations. This is her first participation in the Biennale Arte. Over the course of her career, Anna Maria Maiolino has had numerous major exhibitions and retrospectives, including those at the Instituto Tomie Ohtake in São Paulo (2022), the PAC Pavilion of Contemporary Art in Milan, the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London (2019), the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (2017), the Fundació Antoni Tàpies in Barcelona (2010), and the Drawing Center in New York (2002). He has participated in the Lyon Biennale (2017), the Gwangju Biennale (2014), the São Paulo Biennale (2010, 1998, 1991, 1994, 1967), the Sydney Biennale (2008) and the Havana Biennale (1984), among others. His works are in the collections of the Castello di Rivoli (Turin), the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome, the Museum of Modern Art in Bologna, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, and the Tate in the United Kingdom.

Nil Yalter is a Turkish artist who was born in Cairo, Egypt, on January 15, 1938, and moved to Paris in 1965, where she still lives. She is considered a pioneer of the global feminist art movement. Her artistic career began in 1957, when she held her first exhibition at the French Cultural Institute in Mumbai, India. However, it was during the 1960s that she deepened her practice. After moving to Paris in 1965, Yalter’s work inaugurated a truly radical and pioneering chapter as she began to address social issues, particularly related to immigration and women’s experiences, in a truly unique exploration and development of conceptual art practices. In 1973, Yalter created the groundbreaking installation Topak Ev, shown in a solo exhibition at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. The following year he presented a seminal video work, The Headless Woman, which addressed the theme of women’s sexual liberation and the Orientalist objectification of Middle Eastern women. Another singular work from 1974 is La Roquette, Prison de Femmes (made with Judy Blum and Nicole Croiset), which presents the testimonies of a former inmate of the famous French women’s prison. Her work Temporary Dwellings, first exhibited in 1977, delves into the lives of migrant workers as told by women. In 1980 Yalter first presented another very radical work, consisting of a personal video projection and a lecture entitled Rahime, Femme Kurde de Turquie at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. The 1990s marked a period of creative exploration and recognition for Yalter, during which he experimented with digital media.

On the occasion of the 60th International Art Exhibition, Yalter presents a reconfiguration of his groundbreaking installation Exile is a hard job, along with his iconic work Topak Ev (1973), placed in the first room of the Central Pavilion of the Gardens. This is the artist’s first participation in the Art Biennale. Nil Yalter has had retrospective and solo exhibitions at the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, the Hessel Museum of Art in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, the Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val-de-Mame, France, the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and many other venues. He has participated in the Sharjah Biennial (2023), the Berlin Biennial (2022), the Gwangju Biennial (2014), the Istanbul Biennial (2013), the São Paulo Biennial (1979), and the Paris Biennial (1977), among others. Yalter’s works are in the collections of the Istanbul Modern, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the F.N.A.C. Fonds National d’Art Contemporain in France, the Tate in the United Kingdom, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, and many others.

Venice Biennale, to Anna Maria Maiolino and Nil Yalter the Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement

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