From left, the South Korean artist IM Heung-Soon, holding up his Silver Lion, the Ghanian artist El Anatsui, holding up his Golden Lion award for Lifetime Achievement, the American artists Susanne Ghez and Adrian Piper, holding up their Golden Lions, and the Armenian Pavilion curator Adelina Cuberyan von Furstenberg, holding up her Golden Lion award for the Best National Participation.Credit Luigi Costantini/Associated Press

The envelopes have been opened and the lions held happily aloft.An international jury for the 56th Venice Biennale awarded the Golden Lion for best artist in the fair to Adrian Piper, an American artist living and working in Berlin, whose work has turned a shrewd conceptual eye for more than four decades on questions of race, gender and belonging. 

Ms. Piper, 66, was most prominently featured in the Biennale by “The Probable Trust Registry,” a recent work consisting of corporate-looking kiosks at which people could choose to sign contracts agreeing to live by one or more of three rules:“I will mean everything I say”; “I will do everything I say I will do”; and “I will always be too expensive to buy.” The jury praised her work as an invitation to “engage in a life-long performance of personal responsibility.”......Continue Reading

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