Meet the artists | Cecilia Vicuña

Chilean-born poet and artist Cecilia Vicuña’s career spans half a century – and throughout, she has been focused on a few central themes: human-generated environmental crisis, extinction, and human rights. Yet it’s only in the last few years that she has received the critical recognition she deserves. In this episode of ‘Meet the artists’, we delve into her work, which documents the profound connection between the earth, body, and human experience. In the 1960s, she created the term ‘Arte Precario’, which she defines as ‘acknowledgment of the precariousness of life, the precariousness of the beauty of being.’

Her practice was rediscovered over the last decade, and since been shown at New York’s Guggenheim Museum, Miami’s Museum of Contemporary Art, and LA’s Hammer Museum. ‘A few years ago, my paintings were being destroyed, even by my family and friends,’ she says. In the film, she recounts her creative journey from Santiago to New York from within her installation at the Venice Biennale – which awarded her the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.

Cecilia Vicuña is presenting a site-specific new work at Tate Modern for its annual Turbine Hall Commission from October 11, 2022, to April 16, 2023.

Ceclia Vicuña is represented by Lehmann Maupin (New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, and London) and Xavier Hufkens (Brussels).

Director: Catherine Hyland
DoP: Jorge Luis Dieguez
1st Assistant Camera: Tommaso Rampazzo
Editor: Joe Walton
Colorist: Faith Millin
Music: Stefan Fletcher
Sound Op: Mattia Biadene
Arts Researcher: Amah-Rose Mcknight-Abrams
Assistant: Gigi Xia

Nowness
Creative Director: Bunny Kinney
Managing Editor: Gavin Humphries
Video Commissioner: Shelly Jones
Video Commissioner: Katie Metcalfe
Producer: Noor Miah
Video Editor: Harry Bowley

Alicia Reuter and Jeanne-Salomé Rochat for Art Basel