Awarded during the award ceremony and inauguration at Ca ‘Giustinian, Venice.
The Jury of the 59th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, composed of Adrienne Edwards (USA), President of the Jury, Lorenzo Giusti (Italy), Julieta González (Mexico), Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung (Cameroon), Susanne Pfeffer ( Germany), has decided to award the official prizes as follows:
Golden Lion for the best National Participation:
GREAT BRITAIN
Sonia Boyce: Feeling Her Way
Commissioner: Emma Dexter, British Council;
Curator: Emma Ridgway; Exhibitor: Sonia Boyce
Location: Giardini
Two special mentions attributed to National Holdings:
FRANCE
Les rêves n’ont pas de titre / Dreams have no titles
Commissioner: Institut Francais with the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Culture
Curators: Yasmina Reggad, Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath
Exhibitor: Zineb Sedira
Location: Giardini
UGANDA* (* new participation)
RADIANCE: They dream In Time
Commissioner: Naumo Juliana Akoryo
Curator: Shaheen Merali
Exhibitors: Acaye Kerunen and Collin Sekajugo
Headquarters: Palazzo Palumbo Fossati San Marco 2597
Golden Lion for the best participant in the International Exhibition The milk of dreams to:
Simone Leigh
(1967, Chicago, USA. Lives in New York City, USA)
Silver Lion for a promising young participant in the International Exhibition The milk of dreams at:
Ali Cherri
(1976, Beirut, Lebanon. Lives in Paris, France)
The Jury also decided to assign two special mentions to the participants:
Lynn Hershman Leeson
(1941, Cleveland, USA. Lives in San Francisco, USA)
And
Shuvinai Ashoona
(1961, Kinngait. Lives in Kinngait, Nunavut)
The awards ceremony of the 59th International Art Exhibition took place today 23 April 2022 at Ca ‘Giustinian. The Board of Directors of the Venice Biennale, chaired by Roberto Cicutto, also awarded, on the proposal of the Curator of the 59th Exhibition Cecilia Alemani, two Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement to the German artist Katharina Fritsch and to the Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña.
The prizes of the International Jury are awarded for the following reasons:
Golden Lion for Best National Participation in Great Britain: Sonia Boyce offers another reading of stories through sound. Working in collaboration with other black women, she unveils a multitude of unheard stories. Boyce proposes a very contemporary language in the fragmented forms that the viewer reconstructs through her experience in the pavilion. Important questions of proof are posed in opposition to perfect harmony, as are the relationships between the voices in chorus form, at a distance and at different points in the exhibition.
2 special mentions as National Participations to:
France: as recognition and gratitude for the exchange of ideas and solidarity, such as the idea of building communities in the diaspora. For examining the complex history of cinema beyond the West and the multiple stories of resistance in her work.
Uganda: in recognition of their vision, ambition and commitment to serve the artists working in their country. Using sculptural materials covered with raffia Acaye Kerunen proposes sustainability as a practice and not just as a politics or mere abstraction.
Golden Lion for the best artist at the International Exhibition The milk of dreams to Simone Leigh: for the monumental sculpture at the entrance of the Arsenale, rigorously refined, made with virtuosity, powerfully suggestive which, together with Belkis Ayón, provided a captivating openness to the ideas, sensitivities and proposals of which the milk of dreams is studded and animated.
Silver Lion for a promising young participant in the International Exhibition The milk of dreams at Ali Cherri: for an interdisciplinary and layered presentation that brings meditation on earth, fire and water from a constructive perspective to a mythological dimension, mirroring the exhibition itself. milk of dreams in its opening to other narratives that deviate from the logic of progress and reason.
There are two special mentions awarded to participants this year:
Shuvinai Ashoona reveals in her drawings and paintings the depth of the indigenous Inuk cosmogonies. An existence in which species are interdependent on each other, without the mediation of the colonial power of the human species. Recognizing the violence of the colonial enterprise, Ashoona, in his work proposes the possibility of escaping a dead end by listening carefully and deeply to the wisdom of the natives.
Lynn Hershman Leeson: For indexing the cyber issues that run through the exhibits in an enlightening and powerful way, in an attitude that also goes back to visionary moments in your own practice which foresaw the influence of technology in our daily lives.