The Italian-born Brazilian artist Anna Maria Maiolino (1942 -) is the recipient of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement of the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia - Stranieri Ovunque - Foreigners Everywhere. Maiolino, who declares herself as self-taught, will be participating at the Biennale Arte for the first time in 2024 presenting a new large- scale work that continues and unfolds her series of sculptures and installations in clay.
Born in Scalea, Italy, Maiolino migrated to Caracas, Venezuela in 1954 after World War II. In 1960, she relocated to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where she attended the free painting, sculpture and woodcut classes at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes. She devoted herself to this technique that allowed her to connect with the popular woodcuts practised in the north-east of Brazil; she used it for several years precisely because it was steeped in social criticism.
Anna Maria Maiolino has had many survey and retrospective exhibitions throughout her career, including the Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo (2020), the PAC Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, and the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (2019), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2017), the Fundació Antoni Tapies, Barcelona (2010), and the Drawing Center, New York City (2002). She has participated in the Lyon Biennale (2017), the Gwangju Biennale (2014), the Bienal de São Paulo (2010, 1998, 1991, 1994, 1967), the Sydney Biennale (2008), the Bienal de la Habana (1984). Her work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, among others.